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DUKE 
UNIVERSITY 


DIVINITY SCHOOL 
LIBRARY 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2023 with funding from 
Duke University Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/checkstoantinomi21flet 


CHECKS TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


IN A” 


SERIES OF LETTERS 


¢ 
TO ° 


REV. MR. SHIRLEY AND MR. HILL. 
~ Rey. JOHN FLETCHER. 


IN TWO VOLUMES, 


VOLUME II. 


New-WDork: 
PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 


200 MULBERRY-STREET. 


\ 


- 


ZELOTES AND HONESTUS RECONCILED : 


OR, 
THE SECOND PART 


OF 


AN EQUAL CHECK 


TO 


PHARISAISM AND. ANTINOMIANISM: 


BEING THE FIRST PART 


OF THE 


SCRIPTURE SCALES 


TO WEIGH THE GOLD OF GOSPEL TRUTH, TO BALANCE A MULTITUDE OF OPPOSITR 
SCRIPTURES, TO PROVE THE GOSPEL MARRIAGE OF FREE GRACE AND FREE 
WILL, AND RESTORE PRIMITIVE HARMONY TO THE GOSPEL OF THE DAY. 


WITH A PREFACE, 


CONTAINING SOME STRICTURES UPON THE THREE LETTERS OF RICHARD HILL, ESQ. 
WHICH HAVE BEEN LATELY PUBLISHED. 


BY A LOVER OF THE WHOLE TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS. 


How is the most fine gold ea ci ! Take heed that ye be not deceived; for many shall come 
in my name, saying, “Iam Christ,” doctrinal: “1am Christ,” moral: but, “to the law, 
and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no 
light in them, {or at least because] their wine is mixed with water, and their silver is [partly | 
become dross.” — Bible. 

Si non est Dei gratia, quomodo saluat mundum? Si non est liberum arbitrium, quomodo 
judicat mundum?—Aug. 


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CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 


I. SCRIPTURE SCALES, TO WEIGH THE GOLD OF GOSPEL TRUTH, 
—PART FIRST,—BEING THE SECOND PART OF AN EQUAL,CHECK 


TO PHARISAISM AND ANTINOMIANISM. 


ADVERTISEMENT, . ' Page 9 
Prerarory Epistie. —Description of a true Protestant—The author’s three 
protests, ‘ ll 
Section I. The cause of the misunderstanding of pious Protestants—View 
of the (zespel axioms or weights of the sanctuary, 23 
.—-II. General observations on God’s free grace, and man’s free will—Salvation 
originally of the former, and damnation of the latter, . 27 
III. The golden beam of the Scripture scales—The chains by incl they are 
suspended, and a rational account of the origin of evil, : 31 
IV. Remarks on the terms of the two covenants—Salvation and damnation 
have two causes—The glory of Christ, and original merit, balanced 
with the importance of obedience and derived worthiness, . . 34 
~.-V. The importance of faith balanced by that of works, : 39 
VI. The moral law of Christ, and that of Moses, one and the same; ae the 
Sinai covenant an edition of the covenant of grace, Al 
VII. The doctrine of the preceding section weighed in the Scripture Scales, 53 
VIII. What is God’s work, and what our own—The two are balanced, 57 
IX. The most wonderful work of free grace, the redemption of the world 
balanced with the most wonderful work of free will, the obstinate 
neglect of that redemption, . « 63 
~«<X. The doctrine of free grace, and that of free will, farther maintained, 76 
XI. A rational and Scriptural view of the ninth chapter to the Romans, . 88 
XII. Of an unconditional election of sovereign grace, and a conditional 
election of impartial justice, . - 109 
XIII. A view of St. Paul’s doctrine in the first chapter to the Ephesians, - 119 
II. SCRIPTURE SCALES.—PART SECOND. 
Prerace.—An invitation to the contending parties to end the controversy, . 129 
Explanation of some terms used in this work, . 's < . 134 
Section I. The Scripture doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, . 137 
II. The doctrine farther weighed in the Scripture Scales, . . 146 
III. The declaration of our Lord and his apostles concerning fallen believers, 153 
IV. A double declaration eevee to guard the doctrines of free grace and 
free obedience, : . 159 
_ww¥. The doctrines of free grace and free will farther maintained by Scrip. 
tural arguments, . : : ‘ ‘ ‘ : . 170 
~— VI. How prescience is consistent with liberty, A - 176 
VII. President Edwards and Voltajre’s doctrine of necessity cotisidered and 
refuted, . 184 
VIII. The doctrines of ‘fee grace and free will, here maintained, are the very 
doctrines of the primitive Church, and Church of England, ‘ 199 
IX. The earliest fathers held the doctrine of the Scripture Scales, A « 219 
X. The marriage of free grace and free will reflects no dishonour on God’s 
sovereignty, ri . 226 
XI. The Scriptuzes hold forth first and second causes, ‘and primary and sub. 
ordinate motives, . . 238 
XII. The author sums up the opposite errors of Zelotes, and Honestus, and 
invites them to a speedy reconciliation, - k 2 ; i . 247 


304716 


6 CONTENTS OF VOLUME If, 


II. THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE AND JUSTICE. 


Section I. A plain account of the Gospel, and its various dispensations—It 


holds forth the doctrines of justice as well as those of grace, Page 261 
II. Remarks on the two Gospel axioms wee which the doctrines of grace 

and justice are founded, A . . 268 
III. By whom chiefly the Gospel axioms were systematically parted, scree 
TV. Luther and Calvin did not restore the balance of the co axioms; but 

Cranmer did, © . ° . 273 


V. The two modern Gospels, and their dreadful consequences, . * 2277 


IV. THE RECONCILIATION; OR, AN EASY METHOD TO UNITE 
THE PEOPLE OF GOD. 


Srcrion I. The sad consequence of the division of those who make a pecu- 

liar profession of faith in Christ, - - se ae . 285 
II. Moderate Calvinists and Arminians may be easily reconciled to each other, 290 © 
III. Eight pair of opposite propositions « on which the opens doctrines of 


grace and justice are founded, pe * . 296 
IV. Bible Calvinism and Bible Arinianteen' stated’? in two essays, . . 299 
V. Inferences from the two essays, y . 336 
VI. A plan of general reconciliation and union between moderate Calvinists 

and Arminians, . = « 
VII. Directions how to secure the blessings ‘of peace and brotherly love, . 350 
VIII. Farther motives to a speedy reconciliation, : 2 = A = ey 


as » 


V. REMARKS ON MR. TOPLADY’S SCHEME OF CHRISTIAN AND 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. . 

“InrropuctTion, . . 367 
Section J. A view of Mr. Toplady’ s scheme—It represents God, as the first 

cause of all sin and damnation, . . ‘ . . 369 
II. His error is overthrown by fourteen arguments, 4 : . 376 
III. Twelve keys to open the passages of Souere on which he founds his 

scheme, f . 386 
IV. The cafital objections of the necessitarians to the doctrine of liberty 

answered, . - 402 


V. The doctrine of necessity is the capital ¢ error ‘of the Calvinists, and the 
foundation of the most wretched schemes of philosophy and divinity, . 408 


VI. ANSWER TO MR. TOPLADY’S VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 


INTRODUCTION, F 4 ; ; 5 . . 415 
Section I. The Calvinian scheme evident! ly "implies that some men shall be 
saved, do what they will; and others damned, do what they can, . 417 
Il. Calvinism upon its legs: or a full view of the arguments by which Mr. 
Toplady attempts to reconcile Calvinism with God’s holiness, . - 420 
III. Mr. Toplady appeals in vain to Scripture and reason to support the ab. 
soluteness and holiness of the Calvinian decrees, 4 F - 429 
IV. Calvinian reprobation cannot be reconciled with Divine atin 2 - 432 
V. Much less can it be reconciled with Divine mercy, . 443 
VI. A view of the manner in which Mr. Toplady attempts to prove Calvinian 
reprebation from the Scriptures, . . 447 


VII. The arguments answered by which Mr. Toplady tries to reconcile Cal- 
vinism with a future judgment, and absolute necessity with moral agency, 451 

VIII. Mr. Toplady’s arguments from God’s prescience answered, : . 462 

IX. An answer to the charges of robbing the trinity, and encouraging Deism, 467 


CONTENTS CF VOLUME IL. 7 


Srcrion X. Mr. Topiady attempts in vain to retort the charge of Antinomian- 
ism, and to show that Calvinism is more conducive to holiness, than the 


opposite doctrine, . : Fi ; Page 469 
XI. A caution against the tenet, ‘“ “Whatever i is, is s right, Es : : - 473 
XII. Some encouragements for those who, from a principle of conscience, 

bear their testimony against absolute election and reprobation, . . 480 


VII. POLEMICAL ESSAY. 


Prerace.—Reasons of the title given to this tract—The doctrines of the 
heathens, the Papists, and Calvinists, concerning the purgation of souls 
from the remains of sin—The purgatory recommended in this book, . 485 

Srcrion I. The'doctrine of Christian perfection placed in a Scriptural light, A91 

II. Pious Calvinists dissent from us chiefly because they confound the law of 
innocence, and the law of liberty, or Adamic and Christian perfection, 495 

III. Objections against this doctrine solved merely by considering the nature 
of Christian perfection, . 501 

IV. The ninth and fifteenth articles of our Church, properly understood, are 

a heat the doctrine of Christian perfection—That our Church hoids 
it, is proved by thirteen arguments, . 4 . 506 

V. St. Peter and St. James declare for Christian perfection, ° . 517 

VI. St. Paul preached Christian perfection, and professed to have attained i. 521 

VII. St. Paul was not carnal, and sold under sin—The true meaning of Gal. 


v, 17, and of Rom. vii, 14, a . 529 
VIII. An answer to the arguments by which St. Paul’s supposed ‘carnality i is 
generally defended, . . 540 
IX. St. Paul presents us with a striking picture ‘of a perfect Christian, by 
occasionally describing his own spirituality, . 547 
X. St. John is for Christian perfection, and not for a death purgatory, | - 552 
XI. Why the privileges of believers under the Gospel cannot be justly mea- 
sured by the experience of believers under the law of Moses, e . 559 
XII. A variety of arguments to prove the absurdity of the twin doctrines of 
Christian imperfection and a death purgatory, . 564 
XIII. A variety of arguments to prove the mischievousness of the doctrine 
of Christian imperfection, . . 572 
XIV. The arguments answered, by which the imperfectionists support the 
doctrine of the necessary indwelling of sin till death, . . 579 
XV. The doctrine of Christian perfection is truly evangelical—A recapitula- 
tion of the Scripture proofs whereby it is maintained, . 593 


XVI. The distinction between sins and infirmities is truly Scriptural—An 
answer to Mr. Henry’s grand argument for the continuance of indwell- 


ing sin, : . : : . 601 
XVII. An address to perfect Christian Pharisees, ‘ 2 : 4 . 611 
XVIII. To prejudiced imperfectionists, s 616 


XIX. To imperfect believers, who embrace the doctrine of Christian perfection, 627 
, XX. Address to perfect Christians, . F : : é : “ . 657 


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ADVERTISEMENT. 


Ir is the author’s desire that the following pages should be considered 
as written for all those whom they exactly suit. And in order to this, 
he informs the reader that, in general, 

ZxELoTEs represents any zealous Solifidian, who, through prejudice, 
looks upon the doctrine of free will as heretical. 

Honesrus—any zealous moralist, who, through prejudice also, looks 
upon the doctrine of free grace as enthusiastical. 

Lorenzo—any man of sense, yet unsettled in his religious principles. 

Canpipus—any unprejudiced inquirer after truth, who hates bigotry, 
and would be glad to see the differences among Protestants settled upon 
rational and Scriptural terms. 

A Sorrmran is one who maintains that we are completely and 
eternally saved [sold fide] by sole faith—by faith alone; and who does 
it in so unscriptural a manner as to make good works unnecessary to 
eternal salvation ; representing the law of Christ as a mere rule of life ; 
and calling all those who consider that law as a rule of judgment 
legalists, Pharisees, or heretics. 


i? 


“ 


A PREFATORY EPISTLE, 
HUMBLY ADDRESSED TO THE TRUE PROTESTANTS 


IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 


Containing some remarks upon the distinguishing character of true Pro- 
testants, and upon the contrary disposition—True Protestants are chosen 
judges of the doctrines advanced in this book—A sketch of the author’s 
plan—Observations upon the manner in which it is executed—General 
directions to the reader—True Protestants are encouraged to protest 
against religious absurdities, and unscriptural impositions—The author 
enters a double protest against the AnriNom1aN and Puartsatc gospels 
of the day, and continues to express his love and esteem for the good 
men, who, through the force of prejudice, espouse and defend those par- 
tial gospels. 


Breturen anp Faruers,—Ye know how hard the Romanists fought 
for their errors at the time of the reformation. ‘They pleaded that 
antiquity, synods, councils, fathers, canons, tradition, and the Church 
were on their side: and they so obscured the truth by urging Scripture 
metaphors, and by quoting unguarded passages from the writings of the 
fathers, that thousands of simple people knew not which of the contend- 
ing parties had the truth on its side. ‘The great question debated in 
those days was, whether the host, that is, the bread consecrated by the 
priest in the Lord’s Supper, was to be worshipped as the identical body 
of our Lord. ‘The Romanists produced Christ’s own words: “Take 
and eat, THis is my body—this is my blood—drink of it. Except you 
eat my flesh, and drink my blood, ye have no life in you.” ‘The re- 
formers answered, ‘That those expressions being figurative, it was 
absurd to take them in a literal sense ;” and they proved their assertion 
by appeals to reason and to the Scriptures, where the consecrated bread 
is plainly called bread. The Romanists replied, “that in matters of faith 
we must set aside reason :” and some of them actually decried it as the 
greatest enemy to faith ; while others continued to produce crude quota- 
tions from all the injudicious, inconsistent, overdomg fathers. The 
reformers seeing that at this rate there would be no end to the contro- 
versy, protested three things in general: (1.) That right reason has an 
important place in matters of faith. (2.) That all matters of faith may 
and must be decided by Scripture understood reasonably, and consistently 
with the context. And, (3.) That antiquity and fathers, traditions and 
councils, canons and the Churca, lose their authority when they depart 
from sober reason and plain Scripture. These three.prcests are the 
very ground of our religion, when it is contradistinguished from popery. 
They who stand to them deserve, in my humble opinion, the title of true 
Protestants ; they are, at least, the only persons to whom this epistle is 
inscribed. 


12 PREFATORY EPISTLE. ~ 


If the preceding account be just, true Protestants are all candid 
Christian candour being nothing but a readiness to hear right reason and 
plain Scripture. Sincerely desirous to “ prove all things, to hold fast that 
which is good, and to approve things which are excellent,” Protestants 
are then never afraid to bring their creed to a reasonable and Scriptural 
test. And conscious that the mines of natural and reyealed religion are 
not yet exhausted, they think, with the apostle, that if any man supposes 
he has learned all that he should know, “he is vainly puffed up in his 
fleshly mind, and knows nothing yet as he ought to know.” 

Hence it is, that of all the tempers which true Protestants abhor, 
none seems to them more detestable than that of those Gnostics,—those 
pretenders to superior illumination, who, under the common pretence of 
orthodoxy or infallibility, shut their eyes against the light, think plain 
Scripture beneath their notice, enter their’ protests against reason, steel 
their breasts against conviction, and are so rooted in blind obstinacy, 
that they had rather hng error in an old fantastic dress, than embrace 
the pure truth, newly emerging from under the streams of prejudice. 
Impetuous streams these, which “the dragon casts out of his mouth, that 
he may cause the celestial virgin to be carried away by the flood,” Rev. 
xii, 15. Alas! how many professors are there, who, like St. Stephen’s 
opponents, judges, and executioners, are neither able to resist, nor willing 
to admit the truth; who make their defence by “ stopping their ears, and 
crying out, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we!” 
who thrust the supposed heretic out of their sanhedrim; who, from the 
press, the pulpit, or the dictator’s chair, send forth volleys of hard insin- 
uations or soft assertions, in hope that they will pass for solid arguments; 
and who, when they have no more stones or snow balls to throw at the 
supposed Philistine, prudently avoid drawing “the sword of the Spirit,” 
retire behind the walls of their fancied orthodoxy, raise a rampart of 
slanderous contempt against the truth that besieges them, and obstinately 
refuse either candidly to give up, or manfully to contend for the un- 
scriptural tenets which they would impose upon others as pure Gospel. 

Whether some of my opponents, good men as they are, have not in- 
clined a little to the error of those sons of prejudice, I leave the candid 
reader to decide. They have neither answered, nor yielded to the argu- 
ments of my Checks. They are shut up in their own city. Strong and 
high are thy walls, O mystical Jericho! Thy battlements reach unto the 
clouds ; but truth, the spiritual ark of God, is stronger, and shall pre- 
vail. The bearing of it patiently around thy ramparts, and the blowing 
of rams’ horns in the name of the Lord, will yet shake the very founda- 
tion of thy towers. O that I had the honour of successfully mixing my 
feeble voice with the blasts of the champions who encompass the devoted 
city! O that the irresistible shout) «Reason and Scripture, Christ and 
the truth” were universal! If this were the case, how soon would Jeri- 
cho and Babylon, Antinomianism and Pharisaism, fall together! ebay 

Those two antichristian fortresses are equally attacked in the follow- 
ing pages: and to you, true Protestants, I submit the inspection of the 
attack. Direct me where I am wrong, assist me where I am right, nor 
refuse to support my feebleness by your ardent prayers; for, next to 
the Captain of our salvation, I look to you for help and comfort. 5 

My opponents and I equally pretend to Protestantism ; and who shall 


PREFATORY EPISTLE. 13 


judge between us? Shall it be the men of the world? No: for St. Paul 
says, “I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wIsE MAN 
among you? No, not one that shall be able to judge among his bre- 
thren?’”? There are wise men in our despised camp, able to judge be- 
tween us: and ye are the men, honoured brethren; for ye are all will- 
ing to hear reason, and ready to weigh Scripture. Therefore, on my 
part, I sincerely choose you as judges of the present dispute. 

And that you may not look upon this office as unworthy of your 
acceptance, permit me to tell you, that our controversy is one of the 
most important wich was ever set on foot. To convince you of it. 1 
need oniy remind you, that the grand inquiry, What shall I do to be 
saved ? is entirely suspended on this greater question, Have I any thing 
to do to be eternally saved? A question this which admits of three an. 
swers: (1.) That of the mere Solifidian, who says, “If we are elect, 
we have nothing to do in order to eternal salvation, unless it be to be- 
lieve that Christ has done all for us, and then to sing finished salvation ; 
and if we are not elect, whether we do nothing, little or much, eternal 
ruin is our inevitable portion.” (2.) That of the mere moralist, who is as 
great a stranger to the doctrine of free grace as to that of free wrath ; and 
tells you “that there is no free, initial salvation for us; and that we 
must work ourselves into a state of initial salvation by dint of care, dili- 
gence, and faithfulness.” And (3.) That of the reconciler, whom I con. 
sider as a rational Bible Christian, and who asserts: (1.) That Christ 
has done the part of a sacrificing priest and teaching prophet upon earth, 
and does still that of an interceding and royal priest in heaven, whence 
he sends his Holy Spirit to act as an enlightener, sanctifier, comforter, 
and helper in our hearts. (2.) That “the free gift of initial salvation,” 
and of one or more talents of saving grace, “is come upon all” through 
the God-man Christ who “is the Saviour of all men, especially of 
them that believe.” And (3.) That our free will, assisted by that sav- 
ing grace imparted to us in the free gift, is enabled to work with God 
in a subordinate manner: so that we may freely (without necessity) do 
the part of penitent, obedient, and persevering believers, according to the 
Gospel dispensation we are under. 

This is the plan of this work, in which I equally fight pro aris et focis, 
for faith and works, for gratuitous mercy and impartial justice ; reconcil- 
ing all along Christ our Saviour with Christ our Judge, heated Augus- 
tine with Pelagius, free grace with free will, Divine goodness with 
human obedience, the faithfulness of God’s promises with the veracity of 
his threatenings, rrrst with seconp causes, the original merits of Christ 
with the derived worthiness of his members, and Gid’s foreknowledge 
with our free agency. : 

The plan, I think, is generous; standing at the utmost distance from 
the extremes of bigots. It is deep and extensive; taking in the most 
interesting subjects about which professors generally divide, such as the 
origin of evil, liberty, and necessity, the law of Moses and the Gospel 
of Christ, general and particular redemption, the apostasy and per- 
severance of the saints, the election and reprobation maintained by St. 
Paul, &c. I entirely rest the cause upon Protestant ground, that is, upon 
reagon and Scripture. Nevertheless, to show our antagonists that we are 
not afraid to meet them upon any ground, I prove, by sufficient testimo- 


14 PREFATORY EPISTLE. e 


nies from the fathers and the reformers, that the most eminent divines, 
in the primitive Church and our own, haye passed the straits that I 
point out ; especially when they weighed the heayy anchor of prejudice, 
had a good gale of Divine wisdom, and steered by the Christian mari- 
ner’s compass, the word of God, more than by the false lighis hung out - 
by party men. ; 

If I have in any degree succeeded in the execution of this reconciling 
plan, I hope that my well meant attempt will provoke abler pens to exert 
themselves; and will excite more respectable ines to strike heavier 
blows, and to repeat them, till they have giveu the finishing stroke to 
divisions, which harden the world against Christianity, which haye torn 
the bosom of the Church for above twelve hundred years, and which 
have hurt or destroyed myriads of her injudicious children; driving 
some into Pharisaic obedience, others into Antinomian immorality, and 
not a few into open infidelity or fierce uncharitableness, 

If a tradesman be allowed to recommend his goods, when he does it 
in a manner consistent with modesty and truth, shall I be accused of 
self conceit if | make some commendatory remarks upon the following 
papers? I venture to do it in the fear of God. And, . 

1. They are plain. I deal in plain reason and plain Seripiure ; and 
when the depth of my subject obliges me to produce arguments that re- 
quire close attention, I endeavour so to manage them, that they do not 
rise above the reach of mechanics, nor sink beneath the attention of 
divines. 

2. I have been charged with widening the breaches, which the demon 
of bigotry has made among religious people; but, if I haye done it, I 
take the Searcher of hearts to witness, that it has been with such a de- 
sign as made our Lord bring fire upon the earth,—the fire of truth, to burn 
the stubble of error, and to rekindle the flame of love. However, if I 
have, in years past, made a wound rashly, (of which I am not yet con- 
scious,) in this book I bind it up, and bring the healing, though (to proud 
or relaxed flesh) painful balsam. This book is entirely written upon a 
pacific plan. If I sometimes give the contending parties a keen reproof, 
in obedience to the apostolic precept, “ Rebuke them sharply,” it is only 
to make them ashamed of their contentious bigotry, that I may bring 
them to reason the sooner. And if prejudiced readers will infer from 
thence that I am a bad man, and that my pen distils gall, I forgive their 
hasty conclusion: I once more send them back to the good men of old, 
who have reproved far less errors with far greater severity than I allow 
myself to use: and I ask, if persons, impatient of control, do not always 
put wrong constr=ctions upon the just reproofs which they are deter. 
mined to disregard? 

3. I hope that, notwithstanding the outcry raised against my former 
Checks, they have been of some service to such readers as are not 
steeled against argument and Scripture ; but I flatter myself that, through 
God’s blessing, this tract will be more useful: I prefer it, at least, far 
before the others, because it has far more of Gon’s word, far less of 
mine ; the Scriptures having so large a place in the following sheets, 
that you will find whole sections filled with balanced, passages, to 
which, for brevity’s sake, I have added nothing but a few illustrations in 
brackets [ ] 


e PREFATORY EPISTLE. 15 


4. My method, so far as I know, is new. I have seen several Con- 
cordances made of Scripture words, but have not yet met with one of 
Scripture doctrines upon the delicate subjects handled in this book. 
And I flatter myself that, as whatever throws light upon the Bible has 

. always met with approbation from true Protestants, you will not despise 
this attempt to make the seeming contradictions of that precious book 
vanish away, by demonstrating that they are only wise oppositions, not 
less important in the world of grace, than the distinction of man and 
wife is in the world of nature. 

-5. I hope that you will see, in the following pages, many passages 
placed in such a light, as to have their force heightened, and their ob- 
scurity removed by the opposition of the scriptures with which they are 
balanced ; the passages which belong to the doctrine of FREE GRacE, 
illustrating those which belong to the doctrine of! FREE wiLL, and vice 
versa, just as the lights and shades of a picture help to set off each other. 
I therefore earnestly entreat all my readers, especially those who read 
much and think little, to take time, and not to proceed to a new pair of 
scriptures till they have found out the balance of the last pair which 
they have reviewed. If they deny me this request, my trouble will be 
lost with respect to them; and, through their hurry, my Scales will de- 
generate into a dull collection of texts; the very life and spirit of my 
performance consisting in the harmonious opposition of the scriptures, 
which prove my capital doctrine, that is, the Gospel marriage of free 
grace and free will. And that the reader may find out, with ease, in 
every couple of texts, the hands by which they are joined, and see (if I 
may carry the allegory so far) the ring, by which their marriage is 
ascertained, and their gender known, I have generally put in DIFFERENT 
caaractrers the words on which the opposition or connection of the 
paired texts chiefly depends ; hoping to help the reader’s mind by giving 
his eyes a silent call, and by meeting his attention half way. If he ex- 
erts his powers, and 


«Si callida verbum 
Rediderit junctura novum,”* 


he will, through Gad’s grace, profit by his labour and mine. But I 
repeat it, he must find out the delicate connection, and harmonious oppo- 
sition of the paired scriptures which I produce, or my Scales will be of 
as little service to him as a pair of scale bottoms without a beam would 
be to a banker, who wants to weigh a thousand guineas. 

6. As I make my appeal to true Protestants, I lay a particular stress 
upon the Scriptures. And there I find a doctrine which, for a long suc- 
cession of ages, has been partly buried in the rubbish of popery and 
Calvinism: I mean the doctrine of the various dispensations of Divine 
grace toward the children of men; or of the various talents of saving 
grace which the Father of lights gives to heathens, Jews, and Christians. 
To the obscurity in which this doctrine has been kept, we may chiefly 
impute the self-electing narrowness, and the wide-reprobating partiality 
of the Romish and Calvinian Churches. I make a constant use of this 
important doctrine. It is it chiefly which distinguishes this tract from 
most polemical writings upon the same subject. It is my key and my 


* If a delicate connection renders the word new to him. 


16 PREFATORY EPISTLE. 


sword. With it I open the mysteries of election and reprobation ; and 
with it I attempt to cut the Gordian (should I not say the Calvinian and 
Pelagian?) knot. How far I have succeeded is yours to decide. 

If these general observations, O ye true Protestants, make you cast a 
favourable look upon my Scales; and if, after a close trial, you find« 
that they contain the reconciling truth, and the on complete Gospel of 
Christ, rent by Zelotes and Honestus to make the rwo partial gospels 
of the day; let me entreat you to show what you are, by boldly stand- 
ing up for reason and Scripture, that is, for true Protestantism. Equally 
enter your protest against the Antinomian innovations of Zelotes, and 
the Pharisaic mistakes of Honestus. These two champions have indeed 
their thousands, and tens of thousands at their feet; and they may unite 
their adverse forces to oppose you, as Jews and Gentiles did to oppose 
the Prince of Peace. But resist them with “the armour-of righteous- 
ness on the right hand and on the left,” and you will in time make them 
friends to each other and to yourselves; I say in lime, because when 
peaceful men rush between fierce combatants in order to part them, 
they at first get nothing but blows. ‘The confusion for a time increases ; 
and idle spectators, who have not love and courage enough to rush into 
the danger, and to stop the mischief, say that the peace makers only add 
fuel to the fire of discord. ‘Thus are the courageous sons of peace 
“hated of all men” but of true Protestants, for treading in the steps of 
the Divine Reconciler, whom the two rivals, Herod and Pilate, agreed 
to set at naught—whom Jews and Gentiles concurred to crucify, inve- 
terate enemies as they were to each other! He died, the loving Recon- 
ciler—he died! but by his death “he slew the enmity—broke down the 
middle wall of partition—of twain made one new man; somaking peace” 
between Herod and Pilate, between Jews and Gentiles. And so will 
you, honoured brethren, between Zelotes and Honestus, between the 
Calvinists and the Pelagians, between the Solifidians and the moralists ; 
if you lovingly and steadily try to reconcile them. You may indeed be 
“numbered among transgressors” for attempting it. Your reputation 
may even die between that of the fool and of the knave—that of the 
enthusiast and of the’felon: but be not afraid. Truth and the Cruci- 
fied are on your side. God will raise you secret friends. A Joseph, a 
Nicodemus, will take down “the hand writing that is against you.” A ~ 
Mary and a Salome will embalm your name; and if it be buried in obli- 
vion and reproach, yet it will rise again the third day. . 

If God is for you, fear not then what man can say of you, or even do 
to you. Smile at Antinomian preterition: triumph in Pharisaic repro- 
bation: and when you are reviled for truth’s sake, like blunt, resolute, 
loving Stephen, kneel down, and pray that the sin of your mistaken 
opposers may not be laid to their charge. O for the Protestant spirit 
which animated confessors of old, carried martyrs singing to the stake, 
and there helped them to clap their hands in the flames kindled by the 
implacable abettors of error! O for a Shadrach’s resolution! The rich, 
glittermg image towers toward heaven, and vies with the meridian sun. 
Nebuchadnezzar, the monarch of the kings of the earth, points at the 
burning fiery furnace. The princes, governors, captains, judges, coun- 
sellors, sheriffs, and rulers of provinces, in all their dazzling magnifi- 
cence, increase the glory of his terror. The sound of the cornet, flute, 


PREFATORY EPISTLE. 17 


harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, recommends 
the pompous delusion: the enthusiastic multitudes are fired into univer- 
sal applause. In Nebuchadnezzar’s sense of the word, they are all 
orthodox ; they all believe the Gospel of the day, “ Great is the Diana of 
the Babylonians.” <All people, nations, and languages, fall down” 
before her. But the day is not lost: Shadrach has not yet bowed the 
knee to Baal: nor have his two friends yet deserted him. <‘ What! 
three!” Yes, three only. Nor are they unequally matched; one Sha- 
drach against all people! One Meshach against all nations! One Abed- 
nego against all languages! One Luther, one Protestant against all the 

’world! O ye iron pillars of truth—ye true Protestants of the day, my 
exulting soul meets you in the plain of Dura. Next to Him who wit- 
nessed alone a good confession before Pontius Pilate, of you I learn to 
protest against triumphant error. Truth and a furnace forus! The 
truth—the whole truth as it is in Jesus, and a burning fiery furnace for 
true Protestants ! 

And shall we forget thee, O thou “man greatly beloved,”—<thou 
pattern of undaunted Protestants? Shall we silently pass over thy bold 
protest against the foolish, absolute, irreversible decree of the day? No, 
Daniel: we come to pay our tribute of admiration to thy blessed memory, 
and to learn of thee also a,lesson of true Protestantism. Consider him, 
my brethren. His sworn enemies watch him from the surroundmg 
palaces: but he believes in «the Lion of the tribe of Judah,” and his 
fearless soul has already vanquished’their common lions. He opens his 
window, he looks toward desolate Jerusalem, with bended knees he pre- 
sents his daily supplication for her prosperity, with uplifted hands he 
enters his Jewish protest against the Persian statute ; and, animated by 
his example, I enter my Christian protest against the Calvinian decree 

“ff Daniel, in sight of the lions, durst testify his contempt of an 
absurd and cruel decree, wantonly imposed upon his king; by which 
decree the king hindered his subjects from offermg any true prayer for 
a month, under pretence of asserting his own absolute sovereignty ; shall 
I be ashamed to enter my pretest against a worse decree, absurdly im- 

upon the Almighty on the very same abstrd pretence? A decree 
which hinders ‘ the’ Saviour of the world’ from ‘ praying for the world?’ 
A decree which Calvin himself had the candour to call horribile decre- 
tum? © how much better is it to impose upon an earthly king a decree 
restraining the Persians from praying aright for thirty days, than to im- 
pose upon the King of kings a decree hindering the majority of men, in all 
countries and ages, from praying once aright during their whole lives? And 
if Darius stained his goodness by enacting that those who disobeyed his 
UN-FORCIBLE decree should be cast into the den of lions, and devoured 
in a moment; how do they stain God’s goodness, who teach us, as 
openly as they dare, that he will cast into the den of devils; and cause 
to be devoured by flames unquenchable, all those whom his rorcrsLE 
decree binds either not to pray at all, or to offer up only hypocritical pray- 
rs! I proresr against doctrines of grace, which cannot stand without 
such doctrines of wrath. I Protest against an exalting of Christ, which 
so horribly debases God. I Prorestr against a new-fangled Gospel, 
which holds forth a robe of finished salvation, led with such irreversible 
and finished damnation.” 
Vox. Il. 2 


18 PREFATORY EPISTLE. 


Again: “If Moses had courage enough in a heathen country, and in 
the midst of his enemies, to enter his protest against the oppressive 
decree by which Pharaoh required of the Israelites their usual tale of 
bricks, when he refused them fuel to burn them with: shall I be afraid, 
in this Proresrant kingdom, and in the midst of my friends, to bear also 
my testimony against the error of Honestus? An error this, which con- 
sists in asserting that our gracious God has decreed that we shall work 
out our own salvation without having first life and strength to work im- 
parted to us in a state of initial salvation? Without being first helped 
by his free grace to do whatever he requires of us in order to our eter- 
nal salvation? Shall such a supposed decree as this be countenanced by 
a silence that gives consent? No: I must, I do also enter my protest 
against it, as being contrary to Divine goodness, derogatory to Christ’s 
merits, subversive of the penitent’s hope, destructive of the believer’s 
joy, unscriptural, irrational. And agreeably to our tenth article, I 
protest: (1.) In opposition to Pharisaic pride, that we have no power 
to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God 
preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we 
have that good will. And (2.) In opposition to Pharisaic bigotry, I rro- 
TEST, upon the proofs which follow, that God’s saving grace has appeared 
in different degrees to all men ; PREVENTING [not ForcrING] them, that they 
may have a good will, and worxine wiru [Note, our Church does not 
say, DOING ALL For] them when they have'that good will. And I hope, 
that when my Protestant brethren shall be acquainted with the merits of 
the cause, they will equally ‘approve of my anti-Solifidian and of my 
anti-Pharisaic protest.” 

But shall a blind zeal for truth carry me beyond the bounds of love? 
‘Shall I hate Zelotes and Honestus, because I think it my duty to bear 
my full testimony against their errors? God forbid! I have entered two 
protests as a divine, and now permit me, my Protestant brethren, to enter 
:a third as a plain Christian. Before the Searcher of hearts I once more 
protest, that I make a great difference between the persons of good men, 
and their opinions, be these ever so pernicious. ‘The God who loves me, 
—the God whom I love,—the God of love and truth teaches me to give 
error no quarter, and to confirm my love toward the good men who pro- 
pagate it; not knowing what they do, or believing that they do God 
service. And I humbly hope that their good intentions will, in some 
degree, excuse the mischief done by their bad tenets. But, in the mean- 
time, mischief, unspeakable mischief is done, and the spreading plague 
must be stopped. If in trying to do it as soon and as effectually as 
possible, I press hard upon Zelotes and Honestus, and without ‘ceremony 
drive them to a corner, I protest, it is only to disarm them, that I may 
make them submit to Christ’s easy yoke of evangelical moderation and 
brotherly kindness. . . 

A polemical writer ought to be a champion for the truth ; and a cham- 
pion for the truth who draws only a wooden sword, or is afraid lovingly 
to use a steel one, should, I think, be hissed out of the field of controversy, 
as well as the disputant who goes to Billingsgate for dust, mud, and a 
dirty knife, and the wretch who purposely misses his opponent’s argu- 
ments that he may basely stab his character. I beg, therefore, that the 
‘reader would not impute to a “bad spirit,” the keenness which I indulge 


PREFATORY EPISTLE. 19 


for conscience’ sake ; assuring him that, severe as I am sometimes upon 
the errors of my antagonists, I not only love, but also truly esteem them : 
Zelotes, on account of his zeal for Christ; Honestus, on account of his 
attachment to sincere obedience ; ‘and both, on account of their genuine, 
though mistaken piety. 

Do not think, however, that f would purchase their friendship by giv- 
ing up one of my scales, that is one half of the Bible. Far be the mean 
compliance from a true Protestant. I hope that I shall cease to breathe, 
before I cease to enter protests against Antinomian faith and Pharisaic 
works, and against the mistakes of good men, who, for want of Scrip- 
ture scales, honestly weigh the truth in a false balance, by which they 
are deceived first, and with which they afterward inadvertently deceive 
others. ° 

But, although I would no more yield to their bare assertions or incon- 
clusive arguments, than to hard names or soft speeches, I hope, my 
honoured brethren, that they and you will always find me open to, and 
thankful for, every reproof, admonition, and direction which is properly 
supported by the two pillars of Protestantism—sound reason* and plain 
Scripture : for, if 1 may depend upon the settled sentiments of my mind, 
and the warm feelifigs of my heart, | am determined, as well as you, to 
live and die a consistent Bible Christian. And so long as I shall con- 
tinue in that resolution, [ hope you will permit me to claim the honour of 
ranking with you, and of subscribing myself, brethren and fathers, your 
affectionate brother, and obedient son in the wHotEe Gospel of Christ, 

: A TRUE PRoTEsTANT. 


—_——- 


POSTSCRIPT. 


CONTAINING SOME STRICTURES UPON A NEW PUBLICATION OF 
RICHARD HILL, ESQ. 


Some time after I had sent this epistle to the press, one of my neigh- 
bours favoured me with the sight of a pamphlet, which had been hawked 
about my parish by the newsman. It is entitled, Three Letters written 
by Richard Hill, Esq., to the Rev. John Fletcher, &c. It is a second 
Finishing Stroke, in which that gentleman gives his “‘ reasons for declin- 
ing any farther controversy relative to Mr. Wesley’s principles.” He 
quits the field; but it is like a brave Parthian. He not only shoots his 
own arrows as he retires, but borrows those of two persons whom he 
calls “‘a very eminent minister in the Church of England,” and “a lay 
gentleman of great learning and abilities.” As I see neither argument 
nor Scripture in the performances of these two new auxiliaries, I shall take 
no notice of their ingrafted productions, 

With respect to Mr. Hill’s arguments, they are the same which he 
advanced in his Finishing Stroke: nor need we wonder at his not scru- 
pling to produce them over again, just as if they had been overlooked 
by his opponent ; for, in the first page of his book, he says, “I have not 


_* By “ sound reason” I mean the light of the world,—the true light which en- 
lightens every man that comes into the world. 


20 PREFATORY EPISTLE. 


read a single page, which treats on the subject, since I wrote my Finish- 
ing Stroke.” But, if Mr. Hill has not read my answer to that piece, 
some of our readers have; and they will remember that the crambe re- 
petita—I mean his supposition that St. Paul and St. John held Dr. Crisp’s 
doctrinal peculiarities, is answered in part first of the Fifth Check, 
[toward the close of the first volume.] As for his common plea taken 
from the objection, Who hath resisted his will? it is answered in this 
book. ' 

As Mr. Hill’s arguments are the same, so are also his personal charges. 
After passing. some compliments upon me as an “able defender” of Mr. 
Wesley’s principles, he continues to represent me as “ prostituting noble 
endowments to the advancing of a party.” He affirms, but still without 
shadow of proof, that he has ‘“ detected many misrepresentations of facts 
throughout my publications.” He accuses me of using “ unbecoming 
artifices, much declamation, chicanery, and evasion ;” and says, “‘ Upon 
these accounts I really cannot, with any degree of satisfaction, &c, 
read the works of one who, I am in continual suspicion, is endeavouring 
to mislead me by false glosses and pious frauds.” If1 were permitted to put 
this argument in plain English, it would run thus :—I bespatter my oppo- 
nent’s character, therefore his arguments are dangerous and not worth 
my notice. I do not find it easy to overthrow one of the many scrip- 
tures which he has produced against Antinomianism, but I can set them 
all aside at a finishing stroke ; for I can say, “'The shocking misrepre- 
sentations and calumnies you have been guilty of, will for the future pre- 
vent me from looking into any of your books if you should write a thous 
sand volumes. So here the controversy must end.” (Finishing Stroke, 
p- 40.) When Mr. Hill had explained himself so clearly about his rea- 
son for declining the controversy, is it not surprising that he should suffer 
his bookseller to get sixpence for a new pamplilet, “setting forth Mr. 
Hill’s reasons for declining any farther controversy relative to Mr. Wes- 
ley’s principles?” i. e. to Mr. Wesley’s anti-Solifidian doctrine, of which 
I profess myself the vindicator. 

But another author vindicates those principles also. Itis Mr. Oljyers, 
whom Mr. Hill calls “‘ one Thomas Oliver, alias Olivers.” ‘This author 
was twenty five years ago a mechanic, and like “one” Peter, “ alias” 
Simon, a fisherman, and ‘ one” Saul, “ alias” Paul, a tent maker, has had 
the honour of being promoted to the dignity of a preacher of the Gospel ; 
and his talents as a writer, a logician, a poet, and a composer of sacred 
music, are known to those who have looked into his publications. Mr. 
Hill informs the public why he takes as little notice of this able oppenent’s 
arguments as he does of mine; andthe ‘‘ reason” he ‘sets forth” is worthy 
of the cause which he defends. En argumentum palmarium ! “1 shall not,” 
says he, “take the least notice of him, or read a line of his composition, 
any more than if I was travelling on the road, I would stop to lash, or 
even order my footman to lash, every impertinent little quadruped in a 
village, that should come out and bark at me; but would willingly let 
the contemptible animal have the satisfaction of thinking he had driven 
me out of sight.” How lordly is this speech! How surprising in the 
mouth of a good man, who says to the carpenter, My Lord and my God ! 
When the author of “ Goliah Slain” dropped it from his victorious pen, 
had he forgotten the voluntary humility for which his doctrines of grace 


PREFATORY EPISTLE. 21 


are so conspicuous? Or did he come off in triumph from the slaughter of 
the gigantic Philistine? O ye English Protestants, shall such lordly argu- 
ments as these make you submit to Geneva sovereignty? Will you be 
“lashed,” by such stately logic as this, to the foot of the great image, 
upon whose back you see absolute preterition written in such large cha- 
racters? Will you suffer reason and Scripture to be whipped out of the 
field of controversy in this despotzc manner? Shall such anperial cords 
as these bind you to the horns of an altar, where myriads of men are 
intentionally slain before they are born, and around which injudicious 
worshippers so sing their unscriptural songs about finished salvation, as 
to drown the dismal cries of insured destruction and finished dam- 
nation. 

Mr. Hill’s performance is closed by “a shocking, not to say blas- 
phemous confession of faith,” in ten articles, which he supposes “ must 
inevitably be adopted, if not in express words, yet in substance, by every 
Arminian whatsoever,” especially by Mr. Wesley, Mr. Sellon, and my- 
self. As we desire to let true Protestants see the depth of our doctrine, 
that they may side with us, if we are right, or point out our errors, if 
we are wrong, I publish that creed, (see the close of vol. i,) frankly 
adopting what is agreeable to our principles, and returning to Mr. Hill 
the errors which his inattention makes him consider as necessary con- 
sequences of our doctrines of grace. 

With respect to the three letters, which that gentleman has published 
to set forth his reasons for declining the controversy with me, what are 
they to the purpose? Does not the first of them bear date “July 31, 
1773?” Now I beg any unprejudiced person to decide if a private let- 
ter, written on July 31, 1773, can contain a reasonable overture for 
DECLINING THE CONTROVERSY, when the Finishing Stroke, which was 
given me publicly, and bears date January 1, 1773, contains (page 40) 
this explicit and final declining of it: “So here the controversy must end, 
at least it shall end for me. You may misquote and misrepresent whom- 
soever and whatsoever you please, and you may do it with impunity ; 
TI assure you, I shall give myself no trouble to detect you.” 'The contro- 
versy, therefore, was “declined” in January, on the above-mentioned 
bitter reason. Mr. Hill cannot then reasonably pretend to have offered 
to decline it in July, six or seven months after this, from sweet reasons 
of brotherly kindness, and love for peace. “But in July Mr. Hill wrote 
to his bookseller to sell no more of any of his pamphlets which relate to the 
Minutes.” ‘True: but this was not declining the controversy ; and here 
is the proof. Mr. Hill still professes “declining any farther controversy 
about the Minutes,” and yet in this his last publication, (page 11,) he 
advertises the sale of all the books which he has written against them, . 
from the Paris Conversation to the Finishing Stroke. ‘Therefore, Mr. 
Hill himself being judge, declining the controversy, and stopping the sale 
of his books, are different things. 

Concerning the three letters I shall only add, that I could wish Mr. 
Hill had published my answers to them, that his readers might have 
seen I have not been less ready to return his private civilities, than to 
ward off his public strokes. In one of them in particular, I offered to 
send him my answer to his Finishing Stroke before it went to press, that 
he might let me know if in any thing I had misunderstood or misrepre- 


22 PREFATORY EPISTLE. 


sented him; promising to alter my manuscript upon any just animad. 
version that he might make upon it ; because, after his Fimshing Stroke, 
he could not make a public reply without breaking his word. And it is 
to this proposal that he replies thus in his second letter: “As you in- 
tend to introduce my worthless name into your next publication, I must 
beg to decline the obliging offer you make of my perusing your manu- 
seript.” 

With respect to that gentleman’s character, this after clap does not 
alter my thoughts of it. I cannot but’ still love and honour him on 
many—very many accounts. ‘Though his warm attachment to what he 
calls “the doctrines of grace,” and what we call “ the doctrines of limited 
grace and free wrath,” robs him, from time to time, of part of the mode- 
ration, patience, and meekness of wisdomf which adorn the complete 
Christian character ; I cannot but consider him as a very valuable per- 
son. Ido not doubt but when the paroxysm of his Calvinistic zeal shall 
be over, he will be as great an ornament to the Church of England in 
the eapacity of a gentleman, as he is to civil society in the capacity of 
a magistrate. And justice, as well as lov€, obliges me to say, that, in 
the meantime, he is in several respects a pattern for all gentlemen of 
fortune ; few equalling him in devoting a large fortune to the relief of 
the poor, and their leisure hours to the support of what they esteem the 
truth. Happy would it be for him, and for the peace of the Church, if, 
to all his good qualities, he always added “the ornament of a meek and 
quiet spirit ;” and if he so far suspected his orthodoxy, as to conde 
scend to weigh himself in the Scripture Scales. e 


EQUAL CHECK, 


PART SECOND. 
BEING THE FIRST PART OF 


THE SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


SECTION I. 


The cause of the misunderstandings of pious Protestants—The contrary 
mistakes of Zelotes and Honestus, who are invited to try their doctrines 
by the Scripture Scales—The manner of using them, and the need of 
them in our days. 


Firsr and second causes, leading and subordinate motives, may per- 
fectly agree together. The hinder wheels of a chariot need not be 
taken off because they are not the fore wheels. It would be absurd to 
pull down the left wing of a palace, merely because it is opposed to the 
right. And a man makes himself ridiculous who destroys one of his . 
scales because it accidentally outweighs the other: for both scales may 
recover their equilibrium, and answer the best of purposes. " 

Such, if I mistake not, is the necessary distinction, and such the nice 
union, that subsist between those two opposite and yet harmonizing, 
exploded and yet capital doctrines of the Gospel, which we call free 
grace and free will. ‘To demonstrate that their due conjunction in our 
hearts forms the spiritual marriage of fazth, and gives birth to all good 
works, I have ventured upon the construction of “the Scales,” which 
the reader will find in these pages. If their composition is human, their 
materials are Divine ; for they consist of plain scriptures, chiefly placed 
under two heads of doctrine, which, for their justness and importance, | 
may be called the weights of the sanctuary. (1.) Our salvation is of ») 
God. (2.) Our damnation is of ourselves. 'The furst of these proposi- ‘ 
tions is inseparably connected with the doctrine of jree grace; nor can 
the second stand but upon the doctrine of free will: two doctrines these 
which the moralists and the Solifidians have hitherto thought incom- 
patible ; and about which some of them have contended with the utmost 
acrimony of temper and language. 

Even men of piety have rashly entered the lists, some against free 
grace, others against free will ; warmly opposing what they should have 
mutually defended. The cause of their misunderstanding is very singu- 
lar. They are good men upon the whole, therefore they can never 
oppose truth as truth: and as they are not destitute of charity, they 
cannot quarrel merely for quarreling’s sake. Whence then springs their 
continual contest? Is it not from gross partiality, excessive jealousy, 
wilful inattention, and glaring prejudice? They will not look Gospel 
truth full in the face: they are determined to stand on either side of 
her, and by that means seldom see above the half of her beauty. 

' But all the Protestants are not so partial: for while the Solifidians 


o 


- ¢ 
24 EQUAL CHECK. |PART 


gaze upon the side face of Christianity on the right hand, and the moral- 
ists on the left; her unprejudiced lovers, humbly sitting at her feet, and 
beholding her in full, admire the exquisite proportion of all her features ; 
an advantage this which the opposite rivals can never have in their pre- 
sent unfavourable position. Therefore, while a mere moralist considers 
as* “enthusiastic rant,” the doctrine of free grace extolled by the Soli- 
fidians ; and while a bound-willer brands as “ dreadful heresy,” the 
doctrine ef free will espoused by the moralists ; an unprejudiced Chris- 
tian equally embraces the pretended “enthusiasm” of the one, and the 
imaginary “heresy” of the other; being persuaded, that the different 
sentiments of those partial contenders for free grace and free will are 
only the opposite truths which form the complete beauty of genuine 
Protestantism. ¢ 

This contrary mistake of the moralists, and of the Solifidians, is 
attended with the most fatal consequences } for, as they receive only one 
part of the truth, they think to do God service by attacking the other, 
which they rashly take for a dangerous error; and, so far as the influ- 
ence of their contrary misconception reaches, the whole truth is destroyed. 
Primitive Christianity, in their busy hands, seems to be in as much danger 
of losing her capital doctrines, as the elderly man in the fable was of 
losing his hair between his two wives: one was young, and could not 
bear his partly silvered locks; the other, who was old, wanted him to 
be altogether as gray as herself. Both accordingly fell to work; and 
in a little time the young wife had so plucked out his white hairs, and 
the old woman his black ones, that he remained absolutely bald. 

Will you see their ridiculous conduct exemplified in the religious 
world? Consider Honestus, the sedate moralist ; and Zelotes, the warm 
Solifidian. Honxsrus, who values the ten commandments far above the 
three creeds, seldom dwells upon Christ’s redeeming love and atoning 
blood. Out of the church he rarely mentions the inspiration of God’s 
Spirit, or the comforts of the Holy Ghost ; and it is well if he does not 
think that our addresses to the Mediator are remains of Papistical idol- 
atry. He piques himself much upon his honesty; and hoping that his 
free will, best endeavours, and good works, are almost sufficient to save 
him, he leaves the doctrine of a sinner’s justification by faith to Zelotes 
and Paul. Zzxxores flies to the other extreme. His creed is all; and, 
so far as decency permits, he insinuates that believers may break the 
first and second commandment with Solomon, the third with Peter, the 
fifth with Absalom, the sixth and seventh with David, the eighth with 
Onesimus, and the two last with Ananias and Sapphira; in short, that 
they may go any length in sin without endangering in the least their title 
to a crown of glory. He thinks that the contrary doctrine is rank 
popery. Some of his favourite topics are: (1.) God’s unconditional 
election of some to finished salvation ; an election this which necessarily 
includes God’s unconditional appointment of the rest of mankind to finished 
damnation! (2) An unchangeable fondness of God, and a partial atone- 
ment of Christ, for a comparatively small number of the children of men ; 
a fondness and an atonement these, which include also an unchangeable 
wrath against, and an absolute reprobation of all the world beside. And, 
(3.) A zealous decrying of free will and sincere obedience, under the 
specious pretence of exalting Christ and free grace. As for the justifica- 


* 


we 
SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 25 


tion of a BELIEVER by works and not by faith only, he leaves it to Honestus, 
Bellarmine, and St. James. 

If the sum of Christ’s religion is, Cordially believe, and_ sincerely obey ; 
and if Honestus makes almost nothing of saving faith, while Zelotes 
makes next to nothing of stncere obedience, is it not evident that between 
them both genuine Protestantism is almost destroyed? If I may compare 
Christianity to the woman that St. John saw in one of his visions ; how 
barbarously is she used by those two partial lovers! Both pretend to 
have the greatest regard for her: both have publicly espoused her: both 
perhaps equally recommend her from the pulpit: but, alas! both, though 
without any bad design, use her with the greatest unkindness ; for while . 
Honestus divests her of her peculiar doctrines and mysteries, Zelotes robs 
her of her peculiar precepts$and sanctions. ‘Thus the one (if I may 
carry the allegory so far) puts out her right, and the other her left eye: 
the one stabs her in the right side, and the other in the left: and this 
they do upon a supposition that as soon as all their dreadful operations 
shall be performed, Christianity will shine in the perfection of her native 
beauty. 

While the heavenly woman, mutilated by those partial lovers, lies 
thus bleeding and deformed in the midst of spiritual Egypt, Lorenzo 
casts his eyes upon her; and starting back at the sight, he wisely pro- 
tests that he cannot embrace so deformed a religion: and it is well if, 
in this critical moment, a painted Jezebel, who courts his affections, doés 
not ensnare his unwary soul. She calls herself Natural Religion, but 
her right name is Skepticism in infancy, dnfidelity in youth, Fatalsm in 
ripe years, and Abaddon in old age. Guilty, thrice guilty will Honestus 
and Zelotes prove, if they continue to drive the hesitating youth into the 
arms of that syren, by continuing to render Christianity monstrous in 
his eyes! } 

O mistaken men of God, before you have caused Lorenzo’s ruin, be 
persuaded to review your doctrine ; nor refuse to weigh it in the balance 
of the sanctuary. If fine gold loses nothing in the fiercest fire, what 
can your sentiments lose in my Scripture Scales? Let cheats dread to 
have their weights tried by the royal standard ; but do not you start from 
the trial. -I acknowledge your honesty beforehand. If your weights 
should prove false, your reputation is safe. My readers will do you 
justice ; they, will perceive that, far from having had any intention to 
deceive others, you yourselves have been the dupes of your own preju 
dice ; thus will your mistakes be found out to your profit, and not to 
your shame. 

The error of Honestus and that of Zelotes being opposite, so must be 
their method of using the Scripture Scales. Honestus, who inclines to 
the neglect of Christ, and to the contempt of free grace, must weigh 
himself against the scriptures which follow No. I, and batter down 
Pharisaic dotages ; that is, he must read those scriptures over with 
attention, asking his conscience if he honestly insists upon them as the 
primary traths of Christianity; and if he may not rank with modern 
Pharisees, so far as he opposes or despises those scriptures. On the 
other hand, Zelotes, who leans to the disregard of sincere obedience, 
good works, and free will,, must weigh himself against No. II, under 
which he will find the scriptures that oppose the Antinomian delusion , 


26 " EQUAL CHECK. _ [PART 


confessing that, so far as he sets them aside, he clips away the secondary 
truths of the Gospel, mangles Bible Christianity, and strengthens the 
hands of immoral gospellers and flagitious Antinomians. 

If Zelotes and Honestus will not weigh their doctrine in the Scripture 
Scales, Candidus will do it for them. Prejudice has not yet captivated 
him, nor is he unacquainted with Church history. He believes that the 
pope himself is not infallible. He knows all that glitters as Gospel, is 
not Gospel gold. He remembers, that for several hundred years the 
worship of a consecrated wafer was esteemed a capital part of “ ortho. 
doxy” all England over; and he has observed, that the cautions of my 
motto are particularly given with respect to those who say, I am Christ, 
that is, “I represent him as his Gospel minister, his faithful ambassador ; 
I thank God that I am not like that Methodist ranter, or that dreadful 
heretic.” In a word, Candidus is modest enough not to think any part 
of Scripture beneath his notice; and he is not such a bigot as to sup- 
pose it a crime to compare spiritual things with spiritual ; and to make | 
the candle of truth burn brighter, by snuffing away the black exerescence 
of error. 

To you, therefore, Candidus, I particularly dedicate my Scripture | 
Scales. Despise them not at a time when the Gospel gold, the coin 
current in the Church, is far lighter in proportion than the material gold 
was last year in these kingdoms ;—at a time when the Antinomians 
have so filed away the arms of the King of kings, that it is hard to dis. 
tinguish whether they are quartered with a dove, a goose, or a hawk ; 
a lamb, a lion, or a goat ;—at a time when the Solifidians haye so clip- 
ped the royal motto, that many, instead of “ holiness,” inadvertently read 
“ filthiness unto the Lord ;”—at a time when, on the other hand, Phari- 
saic moralists make it their business so to deface the head of the Kin 
of saints on the Gospel coin, that you might take it for the head of 
Seneca, or that of M. Antonine ;—at a time when dealers in orthodoxy 
publicly present you with one half of the golden truth, which they want 
to pass for the whole ,—at a time when some openly assert, that dung 
is gold—that impure doctrines are the pure Gospel; and that gold is 
“dung”—that good works are “ dross ;”—at such a time, I say, stand 
upon your guard, Candidus. Beware of men; beware of me; nor use 
my Scales till you have tried them by the Old and New Testament, 
those balances of the sanctuary, which you have at home. But if, upon 
close examination, you find that they differ chiefly in cheapness, size, 
and conveniency, adopt the invention; and when you are going to read 
a religious book, or to hear a sermon, imitate the prudent trader, who 
goes to receive money; take your scales, and use them according to 
the following directions :— 

1. Keep them even. Let not the stzings of your entangled affections 
for this or that preacher, or your attachment to one or another party, 
give a hasty preponderance to either#scale. Fairly suspend your judg- 
ment, till it honestly turn by the full weight of truth and evidence. Con- 
sider that the Lord is a God of knowledge, by whom actions are weighed ; 
and call upon him for impartiality ; remembering that with what measure 
ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 

2. Please to observe, that preaching the doctrines which follow No. I, 
does not prove that a minister is an Antinomian, any more than preach 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 27 


ing the doctrines which follow No. II, proves that he 1s a Pharisee ; but 
preaching them in such a manner as directly or indirectly attacks, op- 
poses, or explains away the doctrines in the other scale ; in open defiance 
of one half of the scriptures, which represent free grace and holy free 
will as the fluw and reflux of Divine grace, by which alone the city of 
God flourishes, and through which only her commerce with heaven can 
be profitably carried on. If, therefore, you hear a man say, “I was by 
nature a child of wrath, and by practice the chief of sinners: not by 
works of righteousness which I have done, but by grace I am saved,” 
&c, set him not down for a son’ of voluntary humility. And if he cries 
out, “I have lived in all good conscience unto this day,—touching the 
righteousness which is in the law, I am blameless: be followers of me: 
work out your own salvation: in so doing you shall save yourself,” &c, 
do not rank him with the barefaced sons of pride: but look into both 
scales; and if you find that she honestly uses aux the weights of the 
‘sanctuary, and does the two Gospel axioms justice, as St. Paul, acknow- 
_ ledge him a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, righily dividing the 
word of truth. 

~ 3. Consider times, persons, places, circumstances, and subjects ; nor 
imitate the unreasonable scrupulosity of the man who will make no more 
allowance for the fair wear of a good old guinea, than for the felonious 
diminishing of the coin that was delivered last week at the mint. Do 
not make a man an offender for a word, or a phrase ; no, not for such 
unscriptural phrases as “the imputed righteousness of Christ,” and 
“sinless perfection.” Nor forget, that, although error is never to be 
propagated, yet all the branches of truth can never be displayed at once ; 
and grant a man time to unfold his sentiments before you accuse him of 
countenancing Pharisaic or Antinomian dotages: otherwise you might 
charge St. Paul with Solifidianism, and Christ himself with Pharisaical 
errors. 

4, Above all, remember that, although you have all orthodoxy and all 
faith, you are nothing without humility and love: therefore, when you 
weigh a preacher’s doctrine, throw into his scale two or three grains of 
the charity that is not puffed up, thinketh no evil, and hopeth all things 
consistently with Scripture and reason. If you neglect this caution, you 
will slide into the severity of a lordly inquisitor ; or at least into the im- 
plicit faith of a tame Papist : and the moment this is the case, throwing 
one scale away, and casting all your weights into the other, you will be- 
come a blind follower of the first warm preacher that shall hit your fancy, 
work upon your passions, foment your prejudices, tickle your itching 
ears, or encourage your party spirit; whether he be Honestus or Gallio, 


Elymas or Zelotes. M 


SECTION II. 


Containing some general observations upon God’s free grace and our per- 
sonal free will, which are represented as the original causes of salvation 
_ and damnation. 


Cicero, heathen as he was, asserted “that there is no great,” and 
consequently no good “man,” (sine aliquo afflatu divino,) “ without some 


28 EQUAL CHECK. . [PART — 


influence from the Deity.” ‘This influence our Church calls inspiration : 
(«Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy 
Spirit:”) and St. Paul calls it grace, giving that name sometimes to the 
fountain of Divine goodness, and sometimes to the innumerable streams 
which flow from that eternal fountain. A man must then’be darker than 
a thoughtful heathen, and as blind as an Atheist, if he absolutely denies 
the existence of-Divine grace. And, on the other hand, if we deny that 
there is in man a power io will or to choose, the words I will, I choose, I 
will not, I refuse, which are in every body’s mouth, ‘will prove us per- 
verse. Now, if there is such a thing as grace in God, and will or power 
of choosing in man; both that grace and that will are free. The nature 
of the thing, and the well known meaning of the words, imply as much ; 
a bounty, which we are obliged to bestow, hardly deserving the name of 
grace or favour; and a choice, to which we are forced,—a choice, 
which is not acéompanied with an alternative,—deserving the name of | 
necessity or compulsion better than that of will, choice, or liberty. 

Again: are not God’s grace and man’s will perpetually mentioned, or 
alluded to by the sacred writers? Nay, does not Honestus himself 
sometimes indirectly set his seal to the doctrine of free grace, when he 
implores Divine mercy at the foot of the throne of grace? And warmly 
as Zelotes exclaims against the doctrine of free will, does he not fre- 
quently grant that there is such a thing as choice, liberty, or free will, in 
the world? And if there be, is not this choice, liberty, or free will, the 
reverse of necessity, as well as of unwillingness? If I freely choose to 
blow my brains out, is it not evident that 1 have a liberty not to commit 
that crime, as well as a willingness to do it? Would not Zelotes expose 
his good sense by seriously asserting that if he were in prison, a wil. 
lingness to.continue there would make him free ; unless, together with 
that willingness, he had a power to go.out if he pleased? And is it right 
in him to impose the doctrine of necessity upon the simple, by playing 
upon the double meaning of the word free? I beg leave to explain this 
a little more. 

According to the full meaning of the word free, can it be said with 
any propriety that Judas went freely to hell, if he never had power to 
go to heaven? Or that David went freely to heaven, if he was always 
hindered by an absolute, irresistible decree from going to hell? And, allud- 
ing to mechanical freedom, I ask, Was the motion of those scales ever 
free, which never were as free to ascend as to descend? Does not ex- 
perience convince us, that, when one scale is kept from freely descend- 
ing, the opposite scale is by the same means kept from ascending freely ? 
Is it not evident, from the same rational principles, that no sinner can 
freely ‘“‘choose death in the error of his ways,” who has not power to 
“ choose life ;” a free choice of death necessarily implying a free refu- 
sal of life, and a free choice of life necessarily supposing a free refusal 
of death, in a state of temptation and probation? And is notsthis doc- 
trine perfectly agreeable to such scriptures as these: ‘ He shall know 
to refuse the evil and choose the good. Choose whom you will serve. 
Because ye refused, &c, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, &c; 
therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their 
own devices ?” f 

Upon the preceding observations, seconded by the arguments which 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 29 


shall follow ;—upon the consent of all judicious and good men, who, 
sooner or later, grant that there are such things as God’s grace and 
man’s unnecessitated choice; and consequently such things as free 
grace and free will in the moral world ;—upon the repeated testimonies 
of the most pious Christians of all denominations, who agree that we 
ought to “ give God the glory” of our salvation, and to keep to ourselves the 
blame of our damnation; and upon-almost numberless declarations of 
the Scriptures, I rest these two propositions, which, if I mistake not, 
deserve the name of Gosre axioms: (1.) Our salvation is oRIGINALLY 
of God’s rreE eRacz. (2.) Our damnation is or1GiNALLy of our own 
FREE WILL. ' ; 

Honestvus, who believes in general that the Bible is true, cannot 
decently oppose the first axiom; for according to tle Scriptures, God’s 
free grace gave Christ freely for us, and tous: for us, that he might “bea 
_ propitiation for the sins of the whole world:” and o us, that by “the 
light which enlightens every man that comes into the world,” the strong 
propensity to evil which we had contracted by the fall of Adam might 
be counterbalanced ; and that, by “the saving grace of God, which has 
appeared to all men,” we might, while the day of salvation lasts, be 
blessed with a gentle bias to good, to counteract our native bias to evil ; 
and be excited by internal helps, external calls, and gracious opportuni- 
ties, to resist our evil inclinations, to follow the bias of Divine grace, and 
to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling,” in due subordi- 
nation to the Saviour and his grace. 

Nor can Zetores, who professes a peculiar regard for God’s glory, 
reject the second Gospel axiom with any decency: for if our own free 
will makes us freely and unnecessarily “neglect so great salvation” as 
Christ initially imparts to us, and offers eternally to bestow upon us on 
the gracious terms of the Gospel; is it not ridiculous to exculpate us, 
by charging either God or Adam, or both together, with our damnation ? 
And do we not cast the most horrible reflection upon “ the Judge of all the 
earth, and the Father of mercies,” if we suppose that he “‘ has appointed 
a day to judge the world in righteousness,” and sentence to the gnaw- 
ings of a worm that dieth not, and to the preyings of a fire that is not 
quenched, numberless myriads of his poor creatures, merely for want- 
ing a faith which he determined they should never have; or for doing 
what they could no more help to do, than a pound can help weighing 
sixteen ounces? 

Impartially read any one book in the Bible, and you will find that it 
establishes the truth of the two following propositions :— 


I. 

God hath freely done great things 

or man ; and the still greater things 
which he freely does for believers, 
and the mercy with which he daily 
crowns them, justly entitle him to 
all the honour of their salvation ; 
so far as that honour is worthy of 
the primitive Parent of good, and 
First Causs of all our blessings. 


He wisely looks for some return 
from man; and the little things 
which obstinate unbelievers refuse 
to do, and which God’s preventing 
grace gives them ability to perform, 
justly entitle them to all the shame 
of their damnation. Therefore, al- 
though their temporal misery is ori- 
ginally from Adam, yet their eternal 
ruin is originally from themselves. 


30 EQUAL CHECK; ; [part 


The first of these propositions extols God’s mercy, and the second clears 
his justice ; while both together display his truth and holiness. Accord- 
ing to the doctrine of free grace, Christ is a compassionate Saviour ; 
according to that of free will, he is a righteous Judge. By the fifst his 
rewards are gracious; by the second his punishments are just. By the 
first the mouths of the blessed in heaven are opened to sing deserved 
hallelujahs to God and the Lamb; and by the second the mouths of the 
damned in hell are kept from uttering deserved* blasphemies against God ° 
and his Christ. According to the first, God remains the genuine Parent 
of good; and according to the second, devils and apostate men are still 
the genuine authors of evil. If you explode the first of those proposi 
tions, you admit Pharisaic dotages and self-exalting pride ; if you reject 
the second, you set up Antinomian delusions, and voluntary humility : 
but if you receive them both, you avoid the contrary mistakes of Honestus 
and Zelotes, and consistently hold the Scriptural doctrines of faith and 
works,—free grace and free will,—Divine mercy and Divine justice,— 
a sinner’s impotence and a saint’s faithfulness. tine eee 

Read the Scriptures in the light which beams forth from those two 
capital truths ; and that precious book will in some places appear to you 
almost new. You will at least see a beautiful agreement between a variety 
of texts that are irreconcilable upon the narrow, partial schemes of the 
Pharisees and of the Antinomians. Permit me to giye you a specimen 
of it by presenting you with my Scales; that is, by placing in one point 
of view a number of opposite truths which make one beautiful Whole, 
according to the doctrine of the two Gospel axioms. And may the 
Father of lights so bless the primary truths to Honestus, that he may 
receive the doctrine of free grace; and the secondary ones to Zelotes, 
that he may espouse the doctrine of free will! So shall those inveterate 
contenders be happily reconciled to moderation, to the whole Gospel, 
and to one another. 


*T do not mean that any blasphemy against God is deserved; but that, accord. 
ing to all our ideas of justice, this would be the case, if the doctrine of free will 
were false. For supposing men and angels are not endued with free agency, is it 
not evident that they are mere instruments in the hand of a superior, irresistible 
Agent, who works wickedness in and by them, agreeable to this unguarded proposi- 
tion of Elisha Coles: ‘‘ All things were present with God from eternity ; and his 
decree the cause of their after existence ?” And does not reason ery aloud, that such 
an almighty Agent is more culpable than his overpowered, or passive tools ? Can 
Zelotes himself say that a highwayman does not deserve hanging more than the 
pistol which he fires, and the horse which he rides when he commits murder? 
What an immense field does the doctrine of bound will open in hell for the most 
execrable blasphemies! The Lord forgive its supporters, for they know not what 
they do! The Gospel leaves even heathen unbelievers without excuse, Rom. i, 20; 
but the modern ‘doctrines of grace” funish all sorts of infidels with the best 
excuses in the world. ‘‘God’s predestination caused Adam’s sin and his own; 
and God’s decree kept Christ from dying for, and-his Spirit from sincerely striv- 
ing with them.” As these necessary consequences of Calvinism "encourage 
‘“Mr. Fulsome” to sin here; so (if his doctrines of grace were true) they would 
comfort him in hell hereafter. 


SECOND.] 


‘ 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


31 


SECTION Iil. 


-_— (1.) The golden beam of the Scripture Scales. (2.) The 
chains by which they are suspended. And, (3.) A rational account of 


the origin of exil 


SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES, 


MAKING THE BEAM OF THE SCRIPTURAL SCALES. 


= 

There is a God, that is, a wise, 
good, and just Governor of his ,crea- 
tures. 

It was a design highly worthy of 
a wise Creator to place mankind 
in a state of earthly bliss, and to 
put their loyalty to the trial, that he 
might graciously reward the obe- 
dient, and justly punish the rebel- 
lious. 

The Lord is Lovrne to every 
man, and his mercy is over all his 
works, Psalm cxlv, 9. | 

Grace superabounded, when God, 
in the midst of wrath remembering 
mercy, promised a Saviour to 
Adam personally, and to us semi- 
nally, Rom. v, 20; Gen. ili, 15. 

Not as the offence, so also is the 
free gift. For if through the of- 
fence of one many be dead; much 
more the grace of God and the gift 
by grace, which is by Jesus Christ, 
hath abounded unto many, Rom. 
y, 15. 

By man came the resurrection of 
the dead—for in Christ shall all be 
made alive. 

By the obedience of one shall 
many be made righteous, Rom. v, 19. 

That grace might reign, through 
righteousness, unto eternal life by 
Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. v, 21. 

Therefore, &c, by the righteous- 
ness of one, the free gift came upon 
all men fo justification of life, Rom. 
ope 

The Lord is long suffering to us- 
_ ward, not willing that any should 
perish, but that all should come to 
repentance, 2 Pet. ii, 9. 


Il. 

There are men, that is, rational 
creatures, capable of being morally 
governed. 

Our wise Creator has actually 
executed that design. To have 
done otherwise would have been 
inconsistent with his distributive jus- 
tice, an attribute as essential to him 
as goodness, knowledge, or power. 


The Lord is rieHTEOUs to every 
man, and his justice is over all his 
works. 

Sin abounded, when the first man 
personally fell by the wrong use of 
his free will, and caused us to FALL 
in him seminally, Rom. vy, 20; 
Gen. 1,6. 

Death reigned from Adam. By 
one man sin entered into the world, 
and death by sin; and so death 
passed upon ALL MEN, for that anu 
have sinned, Rom. v, 12, 14. 


By man came death—for in Ad- 
am all die, 1 Cor. xv, 21, 22. 


By one man’s disobedience many 
were made sinners, Rom. v, 19. 

As sin hath reigned [through 
righteousness] unto death, [by Ad- 
am,] Rom. v, 21. ~ 

Even so, by the offence of one, 
judgment came upon all men to 
condemnation. (Jbid.) 


Why will ye die, O house of 
Israel? For I have no pleasure in 
the death-of him that dieth : where- 
fore turn yourselves, and live ye, 
Ezek. xvii, 31, 32. 


32 


I. 
Hence it follows, that, 
1. God’s free grace gave Christ 
to atone for man, and initially gives 
the Spirit of grace to sanctify man. 


To guard the doctrine of grace, 
Divine justice appointed that a cer- 
tain sin, called “a doing despite to 
the Spirit of grace,” and “a sinning 
against the Holy Ghost,” or a wilful 
persisting in disobedient unbelief to 
the end of the day of salvation, 
should be emphatically the sin unto 
eternal death; and that those who 
commit it, should be the sons of 
perdition: see Matt. xii, 32 ;, Mark 
iii, 29; Luke xii, 10; 1 John vy, 
16; John xvii, 12. 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[Part 


Il. 

Hence it follows, that, 

2. Man’s free will, helped by the 
Spirit of grace, may receive Christ 
implicitly as “ the light of men,” or 
explicitly as “the Saviour of the 
world.” 

Some men commit that sin. For 
some men “tread under foot the 
Son of God, count the blood of the 
covenant, wherewith they were 
sanctified, an unholy thing, do de- 
spite to the Spirit of grace,—and 
draw back unto perdition,” Heb. x, 
29, 39. ‘Falling from their own 
steadfastness, and even denying the 
Lord that bought them, they bring 
upon themselves swift destruction, 
(2 Pet. ii, 1,) and perish im the 
gainsaying of Core,” Jude 11 


~ 


THREE PAIR OF GOSPEL AXIOMS, 


Which may be considered as GoLDEN cHatns, by which the tee? 
Scales hang on their beam. 


I. 

I. Every obedient believer’s sal- 
vation is originally of God’s free 
grace. 

Il. God’s free grace is always 
the first cause of what is good. 

III. When God’s free grace has 
begun to work moral coop; man 
may faithfully follow him by be- 
lieving, ceasing to do evil, and 
working righteousness, according 
to his light and talent. 

Thus is God the wise rewarder 
of them that diligently seek him, 
according to these words of the 
apostle :—‘ God, at the revelation 
of his righteous judgment, will ren- 
der to every man according to his 
deeds ; eternal life to them who by 
patient continuance in well doing 
seek for glory. Seeing it is a 
righteous thing” with God to recom- 
pense rest to them who are troubled” 
for his sake, to give ther “a crown 


Il. 

I. Every unbeliever’s damnation 
is originally of his own personal 
free will. 

II. Man’s free will is always the 
first cause of what is evil. 

II]. When man’s free will has 
begun to work moral rym, God 
may justly follow him by withdraw- 
ing his slighted grace, revealing his 
deserved wrath, and working natu- 
ral evil. 

Thus is God the ricHrzovus 
punisher of them that obstinately 
neglect him, according to such 
scriptures as these: ‘ Shall not os 
Judge of all the earth do 
Ye say, The way of the Kadam 
equal: hear now, O ye house of 
Israel, Is not my way equal? J 
will judge you every one after his 
way. Is God unrighteous, who 
taketh vengeance? God forbid! 
How then shall God judge the 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 33 


IL Il. 
of righteousness” as a righteous world? Thou art righteous, O Lard, 
Judge, and to make them “walk .&c, because thou hast judged thus, 
with»Christ in white, because they Thou hast given them blood to 
are worthy,” (in a gracious and drink, for they are worthy,” (in a 
evangelical sensé.) strict and legal sense.) 

Hence it appears, that God’s design in the three grand economies of 
man’s creation, redemption, and sanctification, is to display the riches 
of his FREE GRACE AND DISTRIBUTIVE JusTICE, by showing himself the 
bounteous Author of every good gift, and by graciously rewarding the 
worthy : while he justly punishes the unworthy according to their works, 
agreeably to these awful words of Christ and his prophets: “ For judg- 
ment I am come into this world. The Lord hath made all things for 
himself; yea, even the [men who to the last will remain] wicked, for 
the day of evil. Because he hath appointed a day in which he will 
judge the world in righteousness ;” and to all the wicked that day will 
be evil, and terrible: “For behold, thé day cometh,” says the Lord, 
“that shall burn as an oven; and all that do,wickedly shall be as stubble; 
and the day that cometh shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts. 
But the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: so that a 
man shall say, Verily there is a REwarD for the righteous! Doubtless 
there is a God that suDGETH THE EARTH!” 

Upon this rational and Scriptural plan, may we not solve a difficulty 
that has perplexed all the philosophers in the world? “ How can you,” 
say they, “reasonably account for the origin of evil, without bearing 
hard upon God’s infinite goodness, power, or knowledge? How can 
you make appear, not only that a good God could create a world, where 
evil now exists in ten thousand forms ; but also, that it was highly expe- 
dient he should create such a world rather than any other?” 

AnswEerR.—When it pleased God to create a world, his wisdom 
obliged him to create upon the plan that was most worthy of him. Such 
a plan was undoubtedly that which agreed best with all the Divine per- 
fections taken together. Wisdom and power absolutely required that it 
should be a world of rational, as well as of irrational creatures ; of free, 
as well.as of necessary agents ; such a world displaying far better what 
St. Paul calls worvromAos copia, “the multifarious, variegated wisdom 
of God,” as well as his infimite power in making, ruling, and overruling 
various orders of beings. 

It could not be expected that myriads of free agents, who necessarily 
fell short of absolute perfection, would all behave alike. Here God’s 
goodness demanded that those who behaved well should be rewarded; 
his sovereignty insisted that those who behaved ill should be punished ; 
and his distributive justice and equity required that those who made the 
best use of their talents should be entitled to the highest rewards; while 
those who abused Divine favours most should have the severest punish- 
ments ; mercy reserving to itself the right of raising rewards and of alle- 
viating punishments, in a way suited to the honour of all the other Divine 
attributes. 

This being granted, (and I do not see how any man of reason and 
piety can deny it,) it evidently follows, (1.) That a world, in which va- 
bat ni of free, as well as of necessary agents are admitted, is most 

ox. Il. 


34 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


perfect. (2.) That this world, having been formed upon such a wise 
plan, was the most perfect that could possibly be created. (3.) That, 
in the very nature of things, evil may, although there is no necessity it 
should, enter into such a world; else it could not be a world of free 
agents who are candidates for rewards offered by distributive justice. 
(4.) That the blemishes and disorders of the natural world are only penal 
consequences of the disobedience of free agents. And (5.) That, from 
such penal disorders we may indeed conclude that man has abused free 
will, but not that God deals in free wrath. Only admit, therefore, the 
free will of rationals, and you cannot but fall in love with our Creator’s 
plan; dark and horrid as it appears when it is viewed through the 
smoked glass of the fatalist, the Manichee, or the rigid Predestinarian. 


——_— 


SECTION Iv. 


Containing, (1.) An observation upon the terms of the covenants ; and, (2.) 
A balanced specimen of the anti-Pharisaic Gospel, displaying Christ?s 
glory in the first scale ; and of the anti-Solifidian Gospel, setting forth 
the glory of evangelical obedience in the second scale. 


To reconcile the opposite parts of the Scriptures, let tis remember 
that God has made two covenants with man ; the covenant of justice, and 
the covenant of grace. The first requires uninterrupted obedience to the 
law of paradisiacal innocence. The second enjoins repentance, faith, 
and humble obedience -to all those Gospel precepts, which form what 
David calls the law of the Lord; St. Paul, the law of Christ ; St. James, 
ithe law of liberty ; and what our Lord calls my sayings,—my command- 
‘ments, &c. 

Being conceived in sin since the fall, and having all our powers en- 
feebled, we cannot, personally keep the first covenant: therefore as the 
first Adam broke it for us, Christ, “the second Adam, the Lord from 
heaven,” graciously came to make the law of innocence honourable, by 
keeping it for us, and to give us “ power” to keep his own “law of li- 
berty,” that is, to repent, believe, and obey for ourselves. ‘Therefore, 
with respect to the law of the first covenant, Christ alone is, and must 
‘be, our foundation, our righteousness, our way, our door, our glory, and 
call our salvation. 

But with respect to the second covenant, the case is very different : 
for this covenant, and its law of liberty, requiring of us personal repent- 
ance and its fruits,—personal faith and its works,—all which together 
make up evangelical obedience, or “the obedience of faith ;” it is evi- 
dent, that, according to the requirements of the covenant of grace, our 
“obedience of faith” is (in due subordination to Christ) our righteous- 
ness, our narrow way, our strait gate, our glory, and our salvation: just 
as a farmer’s care, labour, and industry are, in due subordination to 
the blessings of Divine Providence, the causes of his plentiful crops. 

If you do not lose sight of this distinction ;—if you consider that our 
salvation of damnation have each two causes, the second of which never 
operates but in subordination to the first ;—if you observe, that the rmstr 
‘cause of our eternal salvation is God’s free grace in making, and faith- 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 35 


fulness in keeping through Christ his Gospel promises to all sinners, 
who freely submit to the terms of the Gospel; and that consequently 
the seconp cause of that salvation is our own prevented free will, sub- 
mitting to the obedience of faith, through the helps that Christ affords us ; 
—if, on the other hand, you take notice, that the rmrsr cause of our 
eternal damnation is always our own free will, doing despite to the 
Spirit of grace; and that the seconp cause of it is God’s justice in de- 
nouncing, and his faithfulness in executing, by Christ, his awful threat- 
enings against all that persist in unbelief to the end of their day of 
initial salvation, generally called “the day of grace ;’—if you consider 
these things, I say, you will see, that all the scriptures which compose 
my Scales, and some hundreds more, which I omit for brevity’s sake, 
agree as perfectly as the different parts of a good piece of music. 

We now and then find, it is true, a solo in the Bible; I mean a pas- 
sage that displays only the powerful voice of free grace, or of free will. 
Hence Zelotes and Honestus conclude that there is no harmony, but in 
‘the single part of the truth which they admire ; supposing that the ac- 
cents of free grace and free will, justly mixed together, form an enthu- 
siastical or heretical noise, and not an evangelical, Divine concert. 
Thus much by way of introduction. 


FIRST SCALE. 
Scriptures that display the glory 
of Curist, the importance of pri- 
mary causes, the excellence of origi- 
nal merit, and the power of free 
grace. 

Jesus saith unto him} I am the 
way, &c; no man cometh +o the 
Father, but by me. I am the door; 
‘by me if any man enter in he shall 
be saved, John xiv, 6; x, 9. 

Other foundation can no man 
lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus 
Christ. I lay in Sion a chief cor- 
ner stone, &c. He that believeth 
on him shall not be confounded, 1 
Cor. iii, 11; 2 Pet. ii, 6. 

God forbid that I should glory 
save in the cross of Curist. He 
that glorieth, let him glory in the 
Lord, Gal. vi, 14; 1 Cor. i, 31. 


My soul shall be joyful in my 
Gop, for he hath clothed me with 
the garments of salvation, Isa. lxi, 
10. My spirit hath rejoiced in God 
my Saviour, Luke i, 47. 


Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. 
He hath covered me with the robe 
of righteousness, as a bride adorn- 


SECOND SCALE. 

Scriptures that display the glory 
of OBEDIENCE, the importance of 
secondary causes, the excellence of 
derived worthiness, and the power 
of jree will. 

Christ, in his sermon upon the 
mount, strongly recommends the obe- 
dience of faith, as the strait gate, 
and the narrow way, which lead 
unto life, Matt. vu, 13. 

Not laying again the foundation 
of repentance. Charge the rich 
that they do good, &c, laying up in 
store for themselves a good founda- 
tion against the time to come, Heb. 
vi, 1; 1 Tim. vi, 17. 

Let every man prove his own 
work, and then shall he have xav- 
xia, glorying i HIMSELF alone, 
and not in another, Gal. vi, 4. Lit 
is the same word in the original.] 

This is our rejoicing, the testi- 
mony of our conscience, that in sim- 
plicity and copiy sincerity, &c, 
we have had our conversation in 
the world, and to youward, 2 Cor. 
i, 12. , 

I caused the widow’s heart to 
sing for joy. I put on righteous- 
ness and it covered me; my judz- 


36 


I. 
eth herself with her jewels, Rom. 
xiii, 14; Isa. lxi, 10. 


Christ is made unto us of God 
righteousness, 1 Cor. i, 30. 


Neither is there salvation in any 
other ; for there is none other 2“*ne 
{or person] under heaven whereby 
we must be saved, Acts iv, 12. 

Christ was once offered to bear 
the sins of many, Heb. ix, 28. 


Behold the Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sin of the world, 
John i, 29. 

Look unto me, Isa. xlv, 22. 

Consider the High Priest of our 
profession, Jesus Christ, Heb. iii, 1. 

Jesus was made a surety of a 
better testament, Heb. vii, 22. 
[Note: it is not said that Jesus is 
the surety of disobedient believers ; 
but of that testament which cuts off 
the entail of their heavenly inherit- 
ance. See Eph. v, 5.] 

Who his own self bare our sins 
in his own body on the tree. 

God has made him [Christ] to be 
sin for us, who knew no sin, that 
we might be made the righteous- 
ness of God in him, 2 Cor. vy, 21. 


By his knowledge shall my right- 
eous servant [Christ] justify many, 
Isa. lini, 11. 


Preach the GosreL to every 
creature—and forgiveness of sins in 
[my] name, Mark xvi; Luke xxiv, 
47 


Saul preached Curist in the 
synagogues ; we preach not our- 
selves, but Curisr Jesus the Lord, 
Acts ix, 20; 2 Cor. iv, 5. 

We preach Christ crucified, unto 
the Jews a stumbling block, and 
unto the Greeks foolishness; but 
unto them that are called [and obey 


EQUAL CHECK. 


7 re 


[PART 
II. 
ment was a robe anda diadem. I 
was eyes to the blind, &c, Job 
xxix, 14, 15. 

The righteousness of the righteous 
shall be upon him, and the wicked- 
ness of the wicked shall be upon 
him, Ezek. xvii, 20. 

Take heed to thyself and to thy 
doctrine, &c, for in doing this thou 
shalt both save thyself and them 
that hear thee, 1 Tim. iv, 16. 

Let every man prove his Owns 
work, for every man shall bear his 
own burden, Gal. iv, 4, 5. 

Put away the evil of your doings 
from before mine eyes, Isa. i, 16. 


Look to yourselves, John 8. 

Consider thyself—tet us consider 
one another, Gal. vi, 1; Heb. x, 24. 

The Lord is our Judge, the Lord 
is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our 
King; he will save us; [consist- 
ently with those glorious titles,] Isa. 
XXXIil, 22. 


That we being dead to sin should 
live unto righteousness, 1 Pet. ii, 24. 

Be not deceived: God is not 
mocked : for whatsoever a man sow- 
eth, that shall he also reap. For he 
that soweth to his flesh, shall, &c, 
reap destruction, Gal. vi, 7, 8. 

He judged the cause of the poor 
and needy, then it was well with 
him. Was not this to know me? 
saith the Lord, Jer. xii, 16. 

Teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded 
you, Matt. xxvii, 20. 


As he reasoned of righteousness, 
[or #UsTICE,] TEMPERANCE, and the 
JUDGMENT to come, Felix trembled, 
Acts xxiv, 25. 

And yet when the apostle exhorts 
these very Corinthians to relieve the 

, he uses a variety of motives 
beside that of Christ’s cross. Other 


SECOND.] 


I. 
the call] Christ the power of God, 
and the wisdom of God. For I 
determined not to know any thing 
among you [Corinthians] save Jesus 
Christ, and him crucified, 1 Cor. i, 
23, 24; ui, 2. 


Preaching peace by Jesus Christ, 
he is Lord of all—the Prince of 
Peace, Acts x, 36; Isa. ix, 6. 


He that hath the Son hath life ; 
and he that hath not the Son of 
God, hath not life, 1 John v, 12. 

He that acknowledgeth the Son, 
hath the Father also, 1 John ii, 23. 

Christ is our life, Col. iui, 4 


Jesus Curist, who is our hope, 
een, tT 


I have laid help upon one that is 
mighty. Without me ye can do 
nothing, Psa. Ixxxix, 19 ; John xy, 5. 

Neither is he that planteth any 
thing, [comparatively,] &c, but God 
that giveth the increase, 1 Cor. 
ae 

Yet not I [alone, not I first,] but 
the grace of God which was with 
me, 1 Cor. xv, 10. 

Call no man your father upon 
earth ; for one is your Father, who 
is in heaven, Matt. xxiii, 9. 

Christ is made unto us of God 
wisdom, 1 Cor. i, 30. 

God only wise, Jude 25. 


Why callest thou me good? 
There is none good but one, that is 
Gop, Matt. ix, 17. 


TxHovu art wortuy, O Lord, to 
receive glory and honour,” Rev. 
iv, 11. 

I am the light of the world, John 
viii, 12. 

If God be for us, who can be 

inst us? Who is he that con- 
demneth? It is Christ that died, 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


37 


Il. 

churches had abundantly given. 
He had boasted of their forward- 
ness. Their charity would make 
others praise God, and pray for 
them. He that soweth bountifully 
shall reap bountifully, &c, 2 Cor. 
viii, 2; ix, 3, 6, 12, 14. 

There is no peace to the wicked ; 
he that will love life, &c, let him 
do good, seek peace, and pursue it, 
Isa. lvii, 21; Psa. xxxiv, 14. 

Beloved, &c, he that doeth good 
is of God: he that doeth evil hath 
not seen God, 3 John 11. 

Whosoever transgresseth hath 
not God, 2 John 9. 

To be spiritually minded is life, 
Rom. Vill, 6. 

What is our hope? &c. Are not 
even vE [Thessalonians ?] 1 Thess. 
ii, 19. 

I [Paul] can do all things through 
Christ, who strengtheneth me, Phil. 
iv, 13. 

We are labourers together with 
God. As a wise master builder I 
have laid the foundation, 1 Cor. iii, 
9, 10. 

I [Paul] laboured more abundant- 
ly than they all [the apostles,] 1 
Cor. xv, 10. 

Ye have not many fathers, for in 
Christ Jesus I have begotten you 
through the Gospel, 1 Cor. iv, 15. 

Whoso keepeth the law is a wise 
son, Prov. xxviii, 7. 

Five virgins were wise, Matt. 
XXV, 2. 

. A good Man, out of the good trea- 
sure of the heart, [an honest and 
good heart] bringeth forth good 
things, Matt. xii, 35 ; Luke viii, 15. 

They shall walk with me in white, 
for [or rather ox: because] THEY ARE 
wortuy, Rev. iii, 4. 

Ye are the light of the world, 
Matt. v, 14: 

Hearken unto me, ye men of 
understanding: far be it from God 
that he should do wickedness, &c. 


38 
I 


yea, rather that is risen again, who 
is even at the right hand of God, 
who also maketh intercession for 
us, Rom. viii, 31, 34. 


If any man sin, we have an 
Advocate with the Father, Jesus 
Cunist the righteous, 1 John ii, 1. 


Curist ever liveth to make in- 
tercession for them that come unto 
God by him, Heb. vii, 25. 


The Son of man hath power on 
earth to forgive sins, Mark ii, 10. 


Curist, by whom we have now 
received the atonement, Rom. v, 11. 


There is one Mediator between 
God and men, the man Curist 
Jesus, 1 Tim. ii, 5. 


O God, shine on thy sanctuary, 
for the Lord’s sake. For my name’s 
sake will I defer mine anger, Dan. 
ix, 17; Isa. xlviii, 9. 

The Son of man is come to— 
&c, save that which was lost, Luke 
xix, 10." 

Christ is atti and in all,—it 
pleased the Father that in mim 
should all fulness dwell—and ye 
are complete ry um, Col. ii, 11; 
i, 19; ii, 10. To him that hath 
loved us, and washed us from our 
sins in his own blood, and hath 
made us kings and priests, &c, to 
him be glory and dominion for ever 
and ever, Rey. i, 5, 6. 


EQUAL CHECK... 


[part 


For the work of a man shall he ren. 
der unto him, and cause every man 
to find according to his ways. Yea, 
surely God will not do wickedly, 
neither will the Almighty pervert 
judgment, Job xxxiv, 10, 11, 12. 

If any mAN see his brother sin, 
&c, he shall ask, and he [God] 
will give him life for them that 
sin not unto death, 1 John vy, 16. 

I will that intercessions be made 
for all men. The effectual fer- 
vent prayer of A RIGHTEOUS MAN 
availeth much, 1 Timothy ii, 1; 
James y, 16. , 

Whosesoever sins ye remit, they 
are remitted to them, John xx, 
23. 

Puypvenas was zealous for God, 
and made an atonement for the 
children of Israel, Num. xxv, 13. 

Mosss his chosen stood before 
him in the breach to turn away his 
wrath, lest he should destroy them, 
Psalm evi, 23. 

I will not do it [i. e. I will not 
rain fire and brimstone from the 
Lord upon Sodom] for ten right- 
eous’ sake, Gen. xvili, 32. 

He became the author of eter- 
nal satvation to all them that 
obey him, Heb. vy, 9. 

Is Christ the minister of sin? 
God forbid! By their rrurrs ye 
shall know them. We labour that 
we may be accepted of him, for we 
must all appear before the judg- 
ment seat of Christ, that every one 
may receive the things done in his 
body, according to that he hath 
done, whether it be good or bad, 
Gal. ii, 17; Matt. vii, 20; 2 Cor. 
Vp 95 LOS 


Is it. not evident from the balance of these, and the like scriptures 
that Honestus and Zelotes are both under agapital, though contrary mis- 
take ? and that to do the Gospel justice, we must Scripturally join toge- 


ther what they rashly put asunder? 


SECOND.] 


»SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


SECTION Vv. ” 
Setting forth the glory of faith and the honour of works. 


FIRST SCALE. 
Whosoever believeth on him 
[Christ] shall not be ashamed, 
Rom. x, 11. 
This is the work of Gop, that ye 
believe on him whom he hath sent, 
John vi, 29. 


Abraham believed God, &c, and 
he was called the friend of God, 
James li, 23. 

To him that worketh not, but be- 
heveth, &c, his faith is counted for 
righteousness, Rom. iv, 5. 

If ye believe not that I am he, ye 
shall die in your sins, John vii, 
24, 

Only believe : [I particularly re- 
quire a strong exertion of thy faith 
at this time,] Luke vi, 50. 

He that believeth on him that 
sent me, hath everlasting life, and 
shall not come into condemnation ; 
but is passed from death unto life, 
~ John v, 24. 

Thy faith hath savep thee, Luke 
vii, 50. 

- Through faith they wrought 
righteousness, obtained promises, 
&c, Heb. xi, 33. 


With the heart man believeth to 
righteousness, Rom. x, 10. 

Received ye the Spirit by the 
works of the law, or by the hearing 
of faith? Gal. iii, 2. 


Through his name, whosoever 
believeth on him shall receive re- 
mission of sins, Aicts x, 43. 


If Abraham were justified by 
works, he hath whereof to glory, 
Rom. iv, 2. 

Without rarrH it is impossible 
to please God, Heb. xi, 6. 


SECOND SCALE. 

Then shall I not be ashamed, 
when JI have respect unto all thy 
commandments, Psa. cxix, 6. 

What does the Lord require of 
thee, but to do justly, io love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God, 
Micah vi, 8. 

Ye are my friends, if ye do what- 
soever I command you, John xv, 
14, 

Faith, if it hath not works, is 
dead, being alone, James ii, 17. 


Brethren, &c, if ye live after the 
flesh, ye shall die, Rom. viii, 13. 


The devils believe, [therefore 
faith is not sufficient without its 
works,| James ii, 19. 

With the merciful thou [O God 
wilt show thyself merciful: an 
with the froward thou wilt show 
thyself unsavoury, 2 Sam. xxii, 26, 
27. 

We are savep by hope, Rom. 
viii, 24. 

Remembering, &c, your labour 
of love—tlet patience have her per- 
fect work, 1 Thess. i, 3; James i, 
4, 

And with the mouth confession is 
made to salvation. (Ibid.) 

I know thy works, that thou art 
neither cold nor hot, &c, so then, 
&c, I will spue thee out of my 
mouth, Rey. iii, 15, 16. 

Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. 
If we confess our sins, he is faith- 
ful and just to forgive us, Luke vi, 
37; 1 Johni, 9. k 

Was not Abraham our father 
justified by worKs? James ii, 21. 


O vain man, faith without worxs 
is dead, James ii, 20. 


39 / 


40 


if 
They that are of faith are bless- 
ed with faithful Abraham, Gal. iii, 9. 


To them that are unbelieving is 
NOTHING PURE, Tit. i, 15. 


Believe in the Lord, &c, so shall 
you be established, 2 Chron. xx, 20. 

To the praise of the glory of his 
grace, &c, he hath made us accept- 
ed in the beloved, Eph. i, 6. 

I live by Farru in the Son of 
‘God, who loved me, and gave him- 
self for me, Gal. ii, 20. 

For me to live is Cunist, Phil. i, 
21. 

Tus [Christ] is the true God, 
and eternal life, 1 John v, 20. 


This is eternal life, to know thee, 
&c, and Jesus Christ, John xvii, 3. 


He that believeth on the Son 
hath everlasting life, John iii, 36. 

Israel, which followed after the 
law of righteousness, hath not at- 
tained to the law of righteousness. 
Wherefore? Because they sought 
it not by faith, but as it were by 
the works of the law [opposed to 
Christ ;] for they stumbled at that 
stumbling stone, Rom. ix, 31, 32. 

Abraham believed God, and it 
was imputed [or counted] to him 
for righteousness, Rom. iv, 3. 


Trust [i. e. believe] ye in the 
Lord for ever; for in the Lord 
Jehovah is everlasting strength, 
Isa. xxvi, 4. 


* He that believeth on him is not 
condemned, but he that believeth not 
is condemned already, John iii, 18. 


Be it known unto you that through 
this man is preached unto you the 
forgiveness of sins ; and by him all 
that believe are susTIFIED, Acts xiii, 
38, 39. 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 


: Il. 2 
If ye were Abraham’s children, 


ye would do the works of Abraham, 
John viii, 39. 

Give alms, &c, and behold aun 
THINGS are CLEAN unto you, Luke 
xi, 41, 

If thou doest well, shalt not thou 
be accepted ? Gen. iv, 7. 

In every nation he that feareth 
God and worketh righteousness, is 
accepted with him, Acts x, 35. 

If ye, through the Spirit, mor- 
Tiry the deeds of the body, ye 
shall live, Rom. viii, 13. 

Krrer my commandments and 
live, Prov. iv, 4. 

His [my Father’s] commanp- 
MENT is life everlasting, John xii, 
50. 

Though I have all knowledge, 
&c, and have not charity, I am no- 
thing, 1 Cor. xiii, 2. 

And he that [ares] disobeyeth 
the Son, shall not see life. (Ibid.) 

If any man among you, &c, 
bridleth not his tongue, &c, this 
man’s religion is vain. Pure reli- 
gion and undefiled before God is 
this: to visit the fatherless and wi- 
dows in their affliction, and to keep 
himself unspotted from the world, 
James i, 26, 27. 

Phinehas executed judgment, and 
that was counted [or imputed] unto 


him for righteousness for evermore, 


Psa. evi, 30, 31. 

If I regard iniquity in my heart, 
the Lord will not hear me. If our 
heart condemn us not, then have we 
confidence toward God, Psa. Ixvi, 
18; 1 John iu, 21. 

He that humbleth himself shall 
be exalted, and every one that ez- 
alteth himself shall be abased, Luke 
xiv, 11. ' 

The doers of the law [of faith] 
shall be susTIFreED,—in the day 
when God shall judge the secrets 
of men, &c, according to my Gos. 
vel, Rom. ii, 13, 16. 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 41 


K Il. 

We have believed in Jesus Christ, In the day of judgment—by thy 
that we might be sustirtep [as sin- words thou shalt be sustirrep, and 
ners] by the faith of Christ, Gal. by thy words thou shalt be condemn- 
ii, 16. ed, Matt. xii, 36, 37. 

The balance of the preceding scriptures shows that rarru, and the 
works of faith, are equally necessary to the salvation of adults. Faith, 
for their justification-as~sinners, in the day of converston ; and the 
works of faith, for their justification as believers, both in the day of TRIAL 
and of supcment. Hence it follows, that when Zelotes preaches mére 
Solifidianism, and when Honestus enforces mere morality, they both 
grossly mangle Bible’ Christianity, which every real Protestant is bound 
to defend against all Antinomian and Pharisaic innovators. 


SECTION VI. 
THE MORAL LAW OF CHRIST WEIGHED AGAINST THE MORAL LAW OF MOSES. 


Our translation makes St. Paul speak unguardedly, where it says that “ the 
law is not made for a righteous man” —The absurdity of making be- 
lievers afraid of the decalogue—T he moral law of Christ, and the moral 
law of Moses are one and the same—The moral law is rescued from 
under the feet of the Antinomians—Christians are not less under the 
moral law to Christ as a rule of judgment, than the Jews were under it to 
Moses—T he Sinai covenant is proved to be an edition of the covenant 
of grace-—T he most judicious Calvinists maintain this doctrine—- W herein 
consists the difference between the Jewish and the Christian dispensation. 
As the latter is most glorious in its promises, so it is most terrible in ts 
threatenings—T wo capital objections are answered. 


_ |Wuew justice has used her scales, she is sometimes obliged to wield 
her sword. In imitation of her, I lay by my Scales to rescue a capital 
scripture, which, I fear, our translators have inadvertently delivered into 
the hands of the Antinomians. 

1 Tim. i, 8, 9, the apostle is represented as saying, “ We know that the 
law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not 
made for a RicHTEOUs MAN.” “Now,” say some Antinomians, “all be- 
lieyers, being complete in Christ’s imputed righteousness, are and shall 

for ever be perfectly righteous in him ; therefore ‘the law is not made 
for them :’ they can no more be condemned for breaking the moral, than 
for transgressing the ceremonial law.” A horrible inference this, which, 
I fear, is countenanced by these words of our translation: “'Thelaw is 
not made for the righteous.” Is this strictly true? |Were not angels 
and our first parents righteous, when God “made for them” the (then) 
easy yoke of the law of innocence? And is not the law “made for’: the 
absolution of “the righteous,” as well as for the condemnation of the 
wicked? Happily-St. Paul does not speak the unguarded words, which 
we impute to him; for he says, dixaiw vowog ov xzivou, literally, “ The law 
lieth not at, or is not levelled against a righteous man, but against the law- 
less and disobedient,” that is, against those who break it. This literal 
sense perfectly agrees with the apostle’s doctrine, where he says, “ Rulers 


r 


42 EQUAL CHECK. [part 


are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou che 
afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt haye 
-Jution and] praise of the same.” Remix 
_ This mistake of our translators seems to be countenanced by#Gal. y, 
28. “Against such [the righteous] there is no law.” Just as if the 
apostle had said ¢¢1 vowos ovdsig, whereas his words are xara tu ToauTwv 
8x e614 vou.oc, literally, “’The law is not against such!” Whence it appears: 

1.) That believers are under the law of Christ, not only as a rule of 
life, but also as a rule of judgment. (2.) That when they “bear one 
another’s burdens and so fulfil that law,” it is “not against them,” it does 
not condemn them. (3.) That as there is no medium between the con- 
demnation*and the absolution of the law ; the moment the law does not 
condemn a believer, if-acquits him. And (4.) That consequently every 
penitent, obedient believer is actually justified by the law of Christ, 
agreeably to Rom. ii, 12, and Matt. xii, 37: for, says the apostle, “ the 
law is not acarnst such,” plainly intimating that it is For them. 

It had been well for us if some of our divines had been satisfied with 
insinuating, that we need not keep the commandments to obtain eternal 
salvation through Jesus Christ: but some of them even endeayour to 
make us as much afraid of the decalogue, as of a battery of cannon. 
With such design it is that pious J. Bunyan says, in one of his unguarded 
moments, “ Have a care of these great guns, the ten commandments ;” 
just as if it were as desperate an attempt to look into the law of God, in 
order to one’s salvation, as to look into the mouths of ten loaded pieces of 
cannon, in order to one’s preservation. What liberty is here taken with 
the Gospel! Christ says, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the com- 
mandments ;” the obedience of faith being “the marrow way,” that 
through him “leads to life.” “No,” say some of our Gospel ministers, 
“sincere obedience is a jack o’lantern: and what you recommend as 
a way to life, is a tenfold way to death.” O ye that fear God, do 
not so rashly contradict our Lord. Who among you regard yet his 
sayings? Who stand to their baptismal vow? Who will not only 
“believe all the articles of the Christian faith,” but also “keep God’s 
holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of their 
life?” Let no Solifidian make you afraid of the commandments. Me- 
thinks I see the bleeding “ Captain of our salvation” lifting up the standard 
of the cross, and giving thus the word of command: “ Dread not my 
precepts. ‘If you love me, keep my commandments. Blessed are they,’ 
who ‘keep God’s commandments, that they may enter into the city by 
the gate,’ and ‘lay hold on eternal life.’” If this is the language o 
inspiration, far from dreading “ the ten great guns,” love them next to the 
wounds of Jesus. Stand behind the cross; ply there the heavenly 
ordnance, and you shall be invincible: yea, one of you shall chase a 
thousand. It is the command broken in unbelief, and not the command 
kept in faith, that slays: for that very ordnance which is loaded with a 
fearful curse, levelled “unto the third or fourth generation of them that 
hate God,” is loaded with mere “mercy to a thousand generations of 
them that love him and keep his commandments.” : 

Zelotes probably wonders at the legality of the preceding lines, and is / 
‘ready to exclaim against. my “blindness,” for not seeing that Moses’ 
moral law, delivered on Mount Sinai, is a mere covenant of works, 


Vier 


SECOND. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 43 


diametrically opposed to the covenant of grace. As his opinion is one 
of the strongest ramparts of Antinomianism, I beg leave to erect a bat- 
tery against it. If I am so happy as to demolish it, I shall not only be, 
able to Fecover the decalogue—the “ten great guns,” but a considerable 
part of the Old Testament, such as most of the lessons which our Church 
has selected out of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, and which the Soli- 
fidians consider as Jewish trumpery, akin to the Arminian heresy ; 
merely because they contain powerful incentives to sincere, evangelical 
dbedience, according to the doctrine of the second Gospel axiom. 

I humbly conceive then: (1.) That the moral law delivered to Moses 
on Mount Sinai was a particular edition of that gracious and holy law 
which St. James calls « the law of liberty,” St. Paul “ the law 6f Christ.” 
(2.) That our Lord solemnly adopted the moral part of the decalogue, 
in his sermon upon the mount, where he rescued the moral precepts from 
the false glosses of the scribes ; representing those precepts as the evan- 
gelical law, according to which we must live, if ever “‘ our righteousness 
exceeds that of the Pharisees ;” and by which we must be “justified in 
the day of judgment,” (agreeable to his own doctrine, Matt. xii, 37,) if 
ever we escape the curse which will fall on the ungodly. And (3.) That 
although we are not bound to obey the decalogue, as delivered to Moses 
literally written in stone, (in which St. Paul observes that it is “done 
away,” 2 Cor. iii, 7, 11,) yet we are obliged to obey it, so far as it is a 
transcript of the moral law, that eternally binds all rational agents, and 
so far as Christ has made it his own by spiritualizing and enforcing its 
moral precepts on the mount ;—TI say its moral precepts, because the 
fourth commandment, which is rather of the ceremonial than of the moral 
kind, does not bind us so strictly as the others do. Hence it is that St. 
Paul says, “Let no man judge you im respect of the Sabbath days,” 
Col. ii, 16, and even finds fault with the Galatians for “ observing days,” 
with a Jewish scrupulosity. : 

That the moral law of Sinai was a peculiar edition of God’s evangelical 
law adapted to the Jewish commonwealth, and not an edition of the Adamic 
law of innocence, I prove by the following arguments :— , 

1. Rom. x, 5, St. Paul produces Moses as describing the mghteous- 
ness which is of the law of Sinai: ‘‘ That the man who does these things 
shall live by them.” And Rom. vii, 13, he himself describes the right- 
eousness which is of “the law of liberty” thus: “If ye live after the 
flesh ye shall die ; but if ye, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the 
body, ye shall live.” Now are not those people excessively prejudiced, 
who deny either that in both these descriptions the promise, shail live, is 
the same ; or that it is suspended on sincere obedience? And therefore 
_ is it not evident that St. Paul never blamed the Jews for seeking salva- 
tion by an humble obedience to the moral precepts of the Mosaic cove- 
nant, in due subordination to faith in the Divine mercy and in the pro- 
mised Messiah ; but only for opposing their opus operatum, their formal, 
partial, ceremonious, Pharisaic obedience, to that very faith which should 
have animated all their works? : 

2. The truth of this obseryation will appear im a still stronger light, if 
you consider, that when the evangelical apostle asks, “ What says the 
righteousness of faith?” he answers almost in the very words in which 
_ the legal prophet asserts the practicableness of his own law For St 


. 


44 EQUAL CHECK. [part 


Paul writes, “‘ The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in a heart ; 
that is, the word of faith which we preach,” Rom. x, 8. And Moses 
says, Deut. xxx, 11, “The word is very nigh unto thee, even, in an 
mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it ;” which undoubtedly 
implies a believing of that word, in order to the doing of it; agreeably 
to the doctrine of our Church, which asks, in her catechism, é What dost 
thou learn in the commandments?” and answers, “ blearn my duty toward 
God, &c, which is to believe in him,” &c. ‘Thus we see, that as the Mosaic 
law was not without Gospel and fatth, so the Christian Gospel is not 
without Jaw and obedience ; and consequently that those divines who 
represent Moses as promiscuously cursing, and Christ as indiscriminately 
blessing all the people under their respective dispensations, are greatly 
mistaken. 

3. Whatever liberty the apostle takes with the superannuated cere- 
monies of the Jews, which he sometimes calls “ carnal ordinances,” and 
sometimes “ beggarly elements,” it is remarkable that he never speaks 
disrespectfully of the moral law, and that he exactly treads in the steps 
of Moses’ evangelical legality: for if Moses comes down from Mount 
Sinai, saying, “ Honour thy father and mother,” &c, St. Paul writes 
from Mount Sion, “ Honour thy father and mother, (which is the first 
commandment of the second table with promise,) that it may be well with 
thee,” Ephesians vi, 2, 3. As for Christ, we have already seen, that 
when he informs us how well it will be with us if we keep his command. 
ments, he says, “ This do, and thou shalt live ;” i. e. thou shalt “ inherit 
eternal life” in glory. 

4. As Christ freely conversed with Moses on the mount, so St. Paul 
is freely conversant with Moses’ legality in his most evangelical epistles. 
Take another instance of it. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- 
self,” says the Jewish lawgiver, Lev. xix, 28. “Love one another,” 
says the Christian apostle, “for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the 
law, for, &c, love is the fulfilling of the law,” Rom. xii, 8, 10. And 
that he spoke this of the moral law of Sinai, as adopted by Christ, is 
evident from his quoting in the 9th verse the very words of that law, 
“Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not 
steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and—any 
other commandment,” &c. 

5. St. James igus a threefold cord, with Moses and St. Paul, to 
draw us out of the ditch of Antinomianism, into which pious divines 
have inadvertently led us. ‘If you fulfil the royal law,” says he, “ ye 
do well; but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, &c. So 
speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty,” 
James ii, 8, 9,13. ‘ True,” says Zelotes; ‘‘ but that law of liberty is 
the free Gospel preached by Dr. Crisp.” Notso; for St. James imme- 
diately produces part of that very law of liberty, by which fallen beliey- 
ers, “ that have showed no mercy, will have judgment without mercy :” 
and he does it in the very words of Moses and St. Paul, “‘ Do not commit 
adultery, do not kill,” James ii, 11. Any one who can set aside the 
testimony which those apostles bear in favour of the moral law of Moses, 
»may, by the same art, press the most glaring truths of the Bible into the 
service of any new-fangled dotages. 

6. Because the Mosaic dispensation, considered with respect to its 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 45 


superannuated types and ceremonies, is an old covenant with regard to 
the Christian dispensation, Zelotes rashly concludes that Moses’ moral 
law is the covenant of unsprinkled works, and of perfect innocence, which 
God made with Adam in paradise. Hence he constantly opposes the 
ten commandments of God to the Gospel of Christ, although he has no 
more ground for doing it, than for constantly opposing Rom. ii, to Rom. 
viii; Gal. vi, to Gal. ii; and Matt. xxv, to John x. Setting therefore 
aside the ceremonial and civil laws of Moses, the difference between him 
and St. Paul consists principally in two particulars: (1.) The books of 
Moses are chiefly historical; and the epistles of St. Paul chiefly doc- 
trinal. (2.) The great prophet chiefly insists upon obedience, the fruit 
of faith; and the great apostle chiefly insists upon faith, the root of 
obedience. Hence it appears, that those eminent servants of God cannot 
be opposed to each other with any more propriety, than Mr. B. has 
opposed a Jewish if to a Christian 7f. 

7. The Sinai covenant does not then differ from the Christian dispen- 


‘sation essentially, as darkness and light, but only in degree, as the morn- 


ing light and the blaze of noon. Judaism deals in types and veiled truths ; 
Christianity in antitypes and naked truths. Judaism sets forth the second 
Gospel axiom, without destroying the first; and Christianity holds out 
the first, without obscuring the second. The Jews waited for the first 
coming of Christ “to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself:” and the 
Christians look for his “‘appearimg a second time without sin,” i. e. 
without that humiliation and those suffermgs which constituted him “a 
sacrifice for sin.” I see, therefore, no more reason to believe that Mount 
Sinai flames only with Divine wrath, than to think that Mount Sion burns 
only with Divine love; for if a beast was to be thrust through with a 
dart for rushing upon Mount Sinai; Ananias and Sapphira were thrust 
through with a word for rushing upon Mount Sion. And if I read that 
Moses himself “‘ trembled exceedingly” at the Diyine vengeance displayed 
in Arabia, L read also that “great fear came upon all the Church,” on 
account of the judgment inflicted upon the first backsliders in the good 
land of Canaan. In a word, as Christ is “the Lion of the tribe cf Judah,” 
as well as “‘the Lamb of God ;” so Moses was “the meekest man upon 
earth,” as well as the severest of all the prophets. 

8. To prove that the decalogue is a Gospel “law of liberty,” and not 
the Adamic law of mnocence, one would think it is enough to observe 
that the law of innocence was given without a mediator, whereas the 
law of Sinai was given by one. For St. Paul informs us, that “it was 
ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator,” Moses, a mighty inter- 
cessor, and a most illustrious type of Christ, to whom he pointed the 
Israelites. This makes the apostle propose a question, which contains 
the knot of the difficulty raised by the Antinomians: “Is the law then 

inst the promises of God?” Is the Sinai covenant against the Gos- 
pel of Christ? And he answers it by crying out, “God forbid!” Nay, 
as a “school master” it “ brings us to Christ” that we may be “ justified 
by faith” as sinners; and afterward it makes us keep close to him for 
power to obey it, that we may be justified by works’as believers ; “for,” 
says he in another place, “the doers of the law, [and none but they,] 
shall be justified, &c, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of 
men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel.” A plain proof this, that 


46 EQUAL CHECK. ‘ taf ‘(part 


the moral law, with all its sanctions and precepts, is a capital earbes 
the Christian, as well as of the Jewish dispensation. 

9. Again: the Adamic moral law was given without a sacrificing 
priest : but not so the Mosaic moral law. For while Moses was ready 
to act his part as an interceding prophet; Aaron was ready to second 
him by offering up typical incense and"propitiatory sacrifices ; and God 
graciously invested him with power to give a sacerdotal blessing to pen- 
itent transgressors ; appointing him the representative of Christ} whom 
St. Paul calls “the high priest of our dispensation.” 

Once more: the preface of the decalogue is altogether evangelical ; 
and the second commandment speaks of “punishing” only “unto the 
third generation,” while it mentions “showing mercy unto a thousand 
generations,” which, if I mistake not, intimates that the decalogue 
breathes mercy as well as justice ; and therefore that it is an edition of 
Christ’s evangelical, and not of Adam’s anti-evangelical law. 

These observations make me wonder that pious divines should set 
aside the moral part of Moses’ law as being the impracticable law of 
innocence. But when I reflect that Aaron himself helped to set up the 
golden calf, and that Moses, in a fit of intemperate zeal for God, dashed 
the material tables of his own law to pieces, I no more wonder that 
pious Solifidians should help the practical Antinomians to set up their 
great Diana ; and that warm men should break the Almighty’s laws to 
the diminutive, insignificant pieces which they are pleased to call “ rules 
of life.” 

And let nobody say that these arguments are only “ noyel chimeras ;” 
for the most judicious Calvinists have been of this sentiment. Flayel, 
after mentioning several, such as Bolton, Charnock, and Burgess, adds, 
“Mr. Greenhill on Ezek. xvi, gives us demonstration from that context, 
that since it (the Mosaic law) was a marriage covenant, as it appears to 
be, verse 8, it cannot possibly be a distinct covenant from the covenant 
of grace. The incomparable Turretine” (one of Calvin’s most famous 
successors at Geneva) “]earnedly and judiciously states this controyersy, 
and both positively asserts, and by many arguments fully proves, that the 
Sinai law cannot be a pure covenant of works, or a covenant specifically 
distinct from the covenant of grace.” (See Flavel’s Works, folio edi- 
tion p. 423.) 

The same candid author helps me to some of the following supernu- 
merary arguments: (1.) Nothing can be more unreasonable than to 
suppose that God brought his chosen people out of the Egyptian bond- 
age, to put them under the more intolerable bondage of the law of inno- 
cence. (2.) If God had done this, instead of bettering their condition, 
he would have made it worse: nay, he would have brought them from 
the blessing to the curse: for in Egypt they were nationally under the 
covenant made with Abraham: a gracious covenant this, into which 
they were all admitted by the a ae of circumcision. Nor could 
they be put under the Adamic covenant of works, without being first eut 
off from the covenant of grace made with Adam after the fall, renewed 
with all mankind in Noah, and peculiarly confirmed to the Jews in their 
ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; it being evident that no man can 
be at the same time under two covenants absolutely different. Nay, 
(8.) If the law given to the Israelites upon Mount Sinai was not an 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 47 


evangelical law; if it was the law of paradisiacal innocence; God 
treated his peculiar people with greater severity than he did the Egyp- 
tians, who were all under the gracious dispensation which St. Peter 
describes in these words: “In every nation he that feareth God and 
worketh righteousness is accepted of him.” (4.) If, because St. Paul 
decries the obsolete ceremonies’of Moses’ law, it follows that the moral 
law delivered to Moses was not a Gospel law, it will also follow that the 
covenant of circumcision made with Abraham was not a Gospel cove- 
nant: for the apostle expressly decries circumcision, the great external 
work of that covenant. But as Abraham’s covenant was_undoubtedly a 
Gospel covenant, although circumcision is now abolished ; so was Moses’ 
law a Gospel law, although the ceremonial part is now abrogated. 
Lastly: St. Paul, Rom. ix, 4, placed “the giving of the law” among 
the greatest privileges of the Jews, but if by the law he meant the 
Adamic covenant, he should have called it the greatest curse which 
could be entailed upon a fallen creature : for what can be more terrible 
than for a whole nation of sinners to be put under a law that absolutely 
curses_its violaters, and admits of neither repentance nor pardon? 

Flavel, in the page which I have already quoted, makes the following 
just observation : “The law is considered two ways in Scripture. (1.) 
Largely, for the whole* Mosaical economy, comprehensive of the cere- 
monial as well as moral precepts; and that law is of faith, as the learned 
Turretine has proved by four Scripture arguments. (i.) Because it 
contained Christ, the object of faith. (ii.) Because it impelled men to 
seek Christ by faith. (aii.) Because it required that God should be wor- 
shipped, which cannot rightly be without faith. And (iv.) because Paul 
describes the righteousness of faith in those very words whereby Moses 
had declared the precepts of the law. Again: (2.) The law in Scripture 
is taken strictly for the moral law only, considered abstractedly from the 
promises of grace. ‘These are two different senses and acceptations of 
the law. »@ 

Apply this excellent distinction of the refinements, with which the 
doctrine of the law has been perplexed, and you will easily answer the 
objections of those who, availing themselves of St. Paul’s laconic style, 
lay their own farrago at his door. For instance, when he says, “ As 
many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is writ- 
ten, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things, Wc,” he 
means, (to use Flavel’s words,) the law “considered abstractedly from 
the promises of grace ;” for, in that case, the law immediately becomes 
the Adamic covenant of works, which knows nothing of justification by 
faith in a merciful God, through an atoning Mediator; and, in this point 
of view, the apostle says with great truth, “'The law is not of faith, but 
the man that doth these things shall live in them,” without being under 
any obligation to a Saviour. From the curse of this Adamic, merciless 
law, as well as from ‘the curse of the ceremonial burthensome Jaw of 
Moses, “Christ has delivered us ;” but he never intended to deliver us 


* Thus when St. John says the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came 
by Jesus Christ, he does not mean that the law of Moses is a graceless and lying 
law: he only declares, that whereas the Jewish dispensation, which is frequently 
called the law, came by Moses, with all its shadowy types, the Christian dispen- 
sation, which is frequently called grace, came by Jesus Christ, in whom the sha 
dows of the ceremonial law have their truth and reality. 


48 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


from the curse of his own “royal law,” without our personal, Sncste, 
penitential, and faithful obedience to it ; for he says himself, « Why call 

ye me Lord! and do not the things which I say?” « Those mine ene. 
mies,” who put honour upon my cross, while they pour contempt upon 
my crown,—< those mine enemies” who would not that I should reign 
over them, bring hither and slay them before me. 

From the preceding arguments I conclude that what St. James calls 
“the royal law,” and the “law of liberty,” and what St. Paul calls “the 
law of Christ,” is nothing but the moral law of Moses, which Christ 
adopted, and explained in his sermon upon the mount; a law this, which 
is held forth to public view duly connected with the apostles’ creed in 
our Churches, to indicate that Solifidianism is the abomination of desola- 
tion, and that the commandments ought no more to be separated from 
the articles of our faith in our pulpits and hearts, than they are in our 
chancels and Bibles. 

And that we shall stand or fall by the moral part of the decalogue i in 
the great day is evident, not only from the tenor of the New Testament, 
but even from St. Paul’s express declarations to those very Galatians to - 
whom he says, “Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law :” 
for he charges them to “ fulfil the law of Christ ;” adding, “God is not 
mocked ; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap: for he that 
soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap destruction. I haye told you, 
that they who do such things [adultery, fornication, uncleanness, murders, 
drunkenness, and such like] shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But 
the fruit of the Spirit is love, &c, goodness, temperance ; against such 
[as bear this fruit] there is no law:” or rather, the law is not against 
them: for, as the apostle observes to the Corinthians, “We are not” 
Antinomians—* We are not without law to God, but under the law to 
Christ.” 

Among the many objections which Zelotes will raise against this 
doctrine, two deserve a particular answer :— 

“J, If the Mosaic dispensation is an edition of the everlasting Gospel, 
why does St. Paul decry it when he writes to the Galatians and Corinth. 
ians? And why does he say to the Hebrews, ‘ Now hath Christ obtained 
a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the Mediator of a 
better covenant, which was established upon better promises,’ &e, Heb. 
vii, 6, &c. For of these two dispensations the apostle evidently speaks 
in that chapter, under the name of an old and a new covenant.” 

1. Although Christ is the one procurer of grace under all the Gospel 
dispensations, yet his own peculiar dispensation has the advantage of the 
superannuated dispensation of Moses on many accounts, chiefly these : 
Christ is the Son, and Moses was the servant of God: Christ is a sinless, 
eternal priest, “after the” royal “order of Melchisedec ;” and Aaron 
was a sinful, transitory, Levitical high priest : Christ is a living, spiritual 
temple: and Moses’ tabernacle was a lifeless, material building: Christ 
writes the decalogue internally, upon the table of the believer’s heart ; 
and Moses brings it written externally, upon tables of stone: Christ by 
“one offering for ever perfected them that are sanctified;” but the 
Mosaic sacrifices were daily renewed: Christ shed his own precious 
blood, the blood of “the Lamb of God ;” but Aaron shed only the vile 
blood of bulls and common lambs: Christ’s dispensation remaineth, but 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 49 


that of Moses “is done away,” 2 Cor. iii, 11: Christ’s dispensation is 
«the ministration of the Spirit ;” but that of Moses is “the ministration 
of the letter,—of condemnation,—of death,” not only because it eventually 
killed the carnal Jews, who absurdly opposed the letter of their dispensa- 
tion to the spirit of it; but also because Moses condemned to instant 
death blasphemers, adulterers, and rebels ; destroying them with volleys 
of stones, earthquakes, fire from heaven, waters of jealousy, &c. All 
these strange executions were acts of severity, which our mild Redeemer 
not only never did himself, but never permitted his apostles to do while 
he was upon earth; kindly delaying the execution of his woes, and . 
chicfly delighting to proclaim peace to penitent rebels. Hence it is that 
St. Paul says, “If the” Mosaic “ministration,” [which, in the preceding 
respect, was comparatively a “ministration of righteous condemnation, } 
be glory, much more does the ministration of” Christ [which, in the 
sense above mentioned, is comparatively a ministration of righteous 
mercy] “exceed in glory!” 2 Cor. iti, 9. 

2. With regard to the better promises, on which the apostle founds 
his doctrine of the superior excellence of the Christian over the Jewish 
dispensation, they are chiefly these: (1.) “The Lord whom ye seek, 
even the Messenyer of the better covenant, shall suddenly come to his 
temple.” (2.) “To you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness 
arise with healing m his wings.” (3.) “I will be merciful to your 
unrighteousness, and your sins I will remember no more : giving you the 

_knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins ;” a privilege this which 
is enjoyed by all Christian believers. (4.) “ All shall know me from 
the least to the greatest: they shall all be taught of God; for I will 
pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and my servants and my handmaids 
shall prophesy, i. e. speak the wonderful works of God.” This blessing, 
which under the Jewish dispensation was the prerogative of prophets 
and prophetesses only, is common to all true Christians. The four 

evangelists and St. Peter, our Lord and his forerunner, agree to name it 
“the baptism of the Holy Ghost.” St. Peter calls it “the Spirit of pro- 
mise.” Christ terms it also “power from on high, and the promise of 
the Father.” The fulfilment of this great promise is the peculiar glory 
of Christianity in its state of perfection, as appears from John vii, 39, 
and 1 Peter i, 12; and it is chiefly on account of it that the Christian 
dispensation is said to be founded on better promises; but to infer from 
it that the Jewish dispensation was founded on a curse, is.a palpable 
mistake. 

3. Therefore, all that you can make of Heb. viii, 2 Cor. iii, and Gal. 
iv, 1, is, (1.) That the Jewish dispensation puts a heavy yoke of cere- 
monies upon those who are under it, and by that means “gendereth to 
bondage ;” whereas the Gospel of Christ begets glorious liberty ; not 
only by breaking the yoke of Mosaic rites, but also by revealing more 
clearly, and sealing more powerfully, the glorious promise of the Spirit. 
And, (2.) That the “Gospel of Moses,” if I may use that expression 
alter St. Paul, Heb. iv, 2, was good in its time and place, and was 
founded upon good promises ; but that the Gospel of Christ is better, 
and is established upon better promises, the latter dispensations illustrating, 
improving, and ripening the former ; and altogether forming the various 


steps by which the mystery of God hastens to its glorious accomplishment. 
Vor. II. 4 


50 EQUAL CHECK. [Part 


s 

«II. If the Mosaic dispensation is so nearly allied to the Gospel ot 
Christ, why does the apostle, Heb. xii, 18-21, give us so dreadful a 
description of Mount Sinai? And why does he add, ‘So terrible was the 
sight [of that mount burning with fire] that Moses said, I exceedingly 
fear and quake?” 

Answer. The apostle in that chapter exalts, with great reason, Mount 
Sion above Mount Sinai; or the Christian above the Jewish dispensation ; 
and herein we endeavour to tread in his steps. But the argument taken 
from the dreadful burning of Mount Sinai, &c, does by no means prove 
that the Sinai covenant was essentially different from the covenant of 
grace. Weigh with impartiality the following observations, and they 
will, I hope, remove your prejudices, as they have done mine :— 

1. If the dispensation of Moses is famous for the past terrors of Mount 
Sinai; so is that of Christ for the future terrors of the day of judgment. 
“‘ His voice,” says the apostle, “then shook the earth; but now he hath 
promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also — 
heaven. We too look for the shout of the archangel, and the blast of 
the trump of God ;” and are persuaded, that the flames which ascended 
from Mount Sinai to the midst of heaven were only typical of those 
flames that shall crown the Christian dispensation, when our “ Lord shall 
be revealed in flaming fire, to take a more dreadful vengeance on them 
that obey not the Gospel,” than ever Moses did on those who disobeyed 
his dispensation. “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, 
what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation; looking 
for and hasting unto the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire 
shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat!” How- 
inconsiderable do the Mosaic terrors of a burning bush and a flaming. 
hill appear, when they are compared with the Christian terrors of melting 
elements, and of a world, whose inveterate curse is pursued from the 
circumference to the centre, by a pervading fire ; and devoured by rapidly 
spreading flames! 

2. How erroneous must the preaching of Zelotes appear to those 
who believe ail the Scriptures! “I do not preach to you duties and 
sincere obedience, like Mr. Legality on Mount Sinai; but privileges and 
faith, like St. Paul on Mount Sion.” How unscriptural, I had almost 
.said how deceitful is this modish effeminate divinity! Does not the very 
-apostle, who is supposed to patronize it most, speak directly against it, 
where he says, “ We labour that we may be accepted of Him, (the 
Lord ;) for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, &c. 
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord [in that great day of retribu- 
‘tion,] we persuade men?” Nay, does not he conclude his dreadful 
-description of Mount Sinai, and its terrors, by threatening Christian 
‘believers, who “are come to Mount Sion,” with more dreadful displays 
-of Divine justice than Arabia ever beheld, if they do not obey “Him 
that.speaks from heaven?” Heb. xii, 25. And does he not sum up his 
doctrine, with respect to Mount Sinai and Mount Sion, in these awful 
words? “Wherefore, we receiving [by faith] a kingdom which cannot 
>be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, 
‘with reverence and copLy FEAR: for our God” is not the God of the 
Antinomians, but “a CONSUMING FIRE:” i. e. the God who delivered 
‘the moral law upon Mount Sinai in the midst of devouring flames, and 


SECOND. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 51 


gave a fuller edition of it in his sermon upon the mount, solemnly adopt- 
ing that law into his own peculiar dispensation, as “the law of liberty,” 
or his own evangelical law—this very “God is a consuming fire.” He 
will come in the great day, “revealed in flaming fire, to consume the 
man of sin by the breath of his mouth, and to take vengeance on all 
that obey not the Gospel,” whether they despise its gracious offers, or 
trample under foot its righteous precepts. If Zelotes would attentively 
read Heb. xii, 14-29, and compare that awful passage with Heb. ii, 2, 
8, he would see that this is the apostle’s anti-Solifidian doctrine: but, 
alas, while the great Pharisaic whore forbids some Papists to read the 
Bible, will the great Antinomian Diana permit some Protestants to 
mind it? 

Should not the preceding observations have the desired effect upon 
{he reader, I appeal to witnesses. Moses is the first. He comes down 
from Mount Sinai with an angelic appearance. Beams of glory dart 
from his seraphic face. His looks bespeak the man that had conversed 
forty days with the God of glory, and was saturated with Divine mercy 
and love. But I forget that Christianized Jews will see no glory in 
Moses, and have a veil of prejudice ready to cast over his radiant face: 
I therefore point at a more illustrious witness: it is the Lord Jesus. 
“Behold! he cometh with ten thousand of his saints,” says St. Jude, 
“to execute judgment upon all ;” and particularly upon those that “sm 
wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth. There 
remaineth no more sacrifice for their sins,” says my third witness, “ but 
a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall de- 
vour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy ; 
of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy, who hath” 
despised the Christian dispensation, and “done despite to the Spirit of 
grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto 
me—the Lord shall judge uis people. It is a fearful thing to fall into 
the hands of the living God,” Heb. x, 26-31. 

Thus speaks the champion of free grace. Such is the account which 
he gives of Christ’s severity toward those who despise his dispensation, 
—a severity this, which will display itself by the infliction of a punish- 
ment much sorer than that inflicted on the rebels destroyed by Moses. 
And are we not come to the height of inattention, if we can read such 
terrible declarations as these, and maintain that nothing but vinegar and 
gall flows from Mount Sinai, and nothing but milk and honey from Mount 
Sion? How long shall we have “eyes that do not see, and hearts that 
do not understand?” Lord, rend the veil of our prejudices. Let us 
see “the ‘truth as it is in” Moses, that we may more clearly see “the 
truth as it is in Jesus.” 

The balance of the preceding arguments shows that the Mosaic and 
the Christian covenants equally set before us blessing and cursing ; and 
that, according to both those dispensations, the obedience of faith shall 
be crowned with gracious rewards; while disobedience, the sure fruit 
of unbelief, shall be punished with the threatened curse. I throw this 
_ conclusion into my Scales, and weigh it before my readers, thus :— 


52 


BLESSINGS OF THE MOSAIC COVE- 
NANT, 
Being the words of Moses. 
I. 


Moses said, Consecrate your- 
selves to-day to the Lord, &c, that 
he may bestow upon you a Jlessing 
this day, Exod. xxxii, 29. Behold, 
I set before you this day a blessing, 
&c, if ye obey the commandments 
of the Lord. And it shall come to 
pass, that thou shalt put the d/ess- 
ing upon Mount Gerizim, é&c, Deut. 
xi, 20, 29. “And it shall come to 
pass, if thou shalt hearken diligent- 
ly, &c, that the Lord thy God will 
bless thee. All these blessings 
shall overtake thee, &c. Blessed 
shalt thou be in the city and d/ess- 
ed in the field, &c. Blessed shalt 
thou be when thou comest in, and 
blessed when thou goest out, &c. 
The Lord shall command the d/ess- 
ing upon thee, &c. The Lord shall 
establish thee a holy people to him- 
self, if thou shalt walk in his ways. 
And, &c, he shall open to thee his 
good treasure, Deut. xxviii, 1-12. 

This is the blessing wherewith 
Moses, the man of God, dlessed the 
children of Israel. And he said, 
The Lord came from Sinai, &c, 
with ten thousands of saints, from 
his right hand went a fiery law ; 
yea, he Joved the people. Let Reu- 
ben live, and not die. And of Levi 
he said, Let thy Thummim and thy 
Urim [thy perfections and thy 
lights] be with thy holy one. And 
of Napthali he said, O Napthali, 
Satisfied with ‘favour, and full with 
the blessing of the Lord, possess 
thou the west. Happy art thou, O 
Israel; who is like unto thee, O 
people saved by the Lord, the shield 
of thy help? Thine enemies shall 
be found liars, and thou shalt tread 
upon their high places, Deut. xxxili, 
1 to 29. 


The Lord passed by before Mo- 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[parr 


CURSES OF THE CHRISTIAN bnciagice 
SATION, tes 
Being the words of Christ. i) 
Il. 


Jesus began to upbraid the cities, 
wherein most of his mighty works 
were done, because they repented 
not. Wo unto thee, Chorazin :— 
wo unto thee, Bethsaida:—I say 
unto you, It shall be more tolerable 
for Tyre and Sidon, at the day of. 
judgment, than for you. And thou 
Capernaum, which art exalted unto 
heaven, shalt be brought down to 
hell, &c. Tsay unto you, It shall 
be more tolerable for the land of 
Sodom in the day of judgment, than 
for thee, Matt. xi, 20, 25. I tell 
you, Nay ; but except ye repent, ye 
shall ail likewise perish. Cut it 
down, [the barren fig tree =] why 
cumbereth it the gronnd? Let it 
alone this year also ;—if it bear 
fruit, well; and if not, then, after 
that, thow shalt cut, it down, Luke 
xili, 5, 9. 


The Lord of that [once blessed 
but now backsliding| servant will 
come in a day when he looketh not 
for him, and will cut him asunder, 
and will appoint him his portion 
with the unbelievers. And that ser- 
vant, who knew his Lord’s will, and 
prepared not himself, neither did 
according to his will, shall be beaten 
with many stripes, Luke xii, 46. 
Wounto you, hypocrites :—ye shall 
receive the greater damnation :— 
ye make a proselyte twofold more 
a child of hell than yourselves. 
Wo unto you, ye blind guides—ye 
fools, and blind—ye pay tithe of 
mint, and have omitted judgment, 
mercy, and faith, &c. Fill ye up 
then the measure of your telfers’: 
ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, 
how can ye escape the damnation 
of hell? Matt. xxiii, 13 to 33. 

Wo to that man by whom the 


SECOND.] 


L. 
ses, and proclaimed, The Lord, 
the Lord God, merciful and gra- 


cious, long suffering and abundant 
in goodness and truth, keeping 


_ mercy for thousands, forgiving ini- 
quity, transgression, and sin, &c. 
And Moses made haste, &c, and 
said, If now I have found grace in 
thy sight, O Lord, &c, pardon our 
iniquity, and our sin, and take us for 
thine inheritance. And he (the 
Lord) said, I make a (or the) cove- 
nant, Exodus xxxiv, 6-10. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


53 
I. 


offence cometh; wherefore if thy 
hand or thy foot offend thee, cut 
them off. It is better to enter into 
life maimed, rather than be cast 
into everlasting fire, Matt. xviii, 7, 
8. Wo unto you that are rich, 


&c. Wo unto you that are full, 
&c. Wo unto you that laugh now, 
&c. Wo unto you, when all men 


shall speak well of you, Luke vi, 
24. Depart from me, ye cursed, 
into everlasting fire, prepared for the 
devil—for I was hungTy, and ye gave 


me no meat, &c, Matt. xxv, 42. 

I flatter myself, that if Zelotes and Honestus candidly weigh the pre- 
ceding arguments and scriptures, they will reap from thence a double 
advantage: (1.) They will no more tread the honour of Christ’s moral 
law in the dust—no more rob it of its chief glory, that of being a strict 
rule of judgment. (2.) Honestus will be again benefited by a consider- 
able part of the New Testament; and Zelotes by a considerable part 
of the law and the prophets, which (as our Lord himself informs us) 
“hang on” those very “ commandments” that the Antinomians divest of - 
their sanction, and the Pharisees of their spirituality. 


SECTION VII. 


The doctrine of the preceding section is weighed in the Scripture 
Scales—According to Christ’s Gospel, keeping the moral law in 
faith is a svBoRDINATE way to eternal life, and some Protestants are 
grossly mistaken when they make believers afraid sincerely to observe 
the commandments, in order to obtain through Christ a more abun- 
dant life of grace here; and an eternal life of glory hereafter. 


Ir I have spent so much time in attempting to remove the difficulties 
with which the doctrine of the law is clogged, it has not been without 
reason ; for the success of my Checks in a great degree depends upon 
clearing up this part of my subject. If I fail here, Pharisaism will not 
be checked, and gross Antinomianism will still pass for the pure Gospel ; 
fundamental errors about the law being the muddy springs whence the 
broken cisterns, both of the Pharisees and of the Antinomians, have 
their constant supplies. Honestus will have an anti-evangelical, Christ- 
less law, or at least a law without spirituality and strictness ; the law he 
frames to himself being an insignificant twig, and not the Spirit’s two- 
edged piercing sword. And Zelotes contrives a Gospel without law; 
or, if he admits of a law for Christ’s subjects, it is such a one as has 
only the shadow of a law—“a rule of life,” as he calls it, and Nor a 
rule of judgment. That at first sight Honestus may perceive the spiritu- 
ality of the law, and the need of Christ’s Gospel ; and that Zelotes may 
discover the need of Christ’s law, and see its awful impartiality, I beg 


54 


EQUAL CHECK. 


| (pause 


leave to recapitulate the contents of the last section ; presenting them to” 


the reader, in my Scales, as the just weights of the sanctuary 


balancing each other. 


WEIGHTS OF FAITH AND FREE 
GRACE. 
IL 
When the Philippian jailer cried 
out, Sirs, what must I do to be 
saved? Paul and Silas said, [accord- 
ing to the first Gospel axiom,] 


exactly | 


WEIGHTS OF WORKS AND FREE 
WILL. , 
A Il. 

When the young ruler, and the 
pious lawyer, asked our Lord 
What shall I do to inherit eternal 
life? He answered them, [accord- 


Beuteve in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved, Acts xvi, 
"31. 


ing to the second axiom,] If thou 
wilt enter into life, KEEP THE Com. 
MANDMENTS. This do, and thou 
shalt live, Matt. xix, 17; Luke 
xviii, 19; x, 28. 

Here Zelotes, as if he were determined to set aside the left Gospel scale, 
cries out, “ There is no entering into life by doing and keeping the com- 
mandments. 'The young ruler and the lawyer were both as great legal- 
ists as yourself, and Christ answered them according to their error ; the 
wise man having observed, that we must sometimes ‘answer a fool 
according to his folly.’” I understand you, Zelotes ; you suppose that 
one Pharisai¢ fiend had driven the poisoned nail of legality into their 
breasts, and that Christ was so officious as to clinch it for him. “ Not 
so,” replies Zelotes, “but I think Christ’s answer was ironical, like that 
of the Prophet Micaiah, who said one thing to King Ahab, and meant 
another.” What! Zelotes, two men, at different times and in the most 
solemn manner, propose to our Lord the most important question in the 
world. He shows a particular regard for them; and returns them 
similar answers. When one of them had described the way of obedi- 
ence, an evangelist observes, that ‘‘ Jesus saw he had answered discreetly, 
Mark xii, 34. St. Luke informs us that Christ commended him and 
said, “'Thou hast answered right,” Luke x, 28; and yet you intimate, 
that not only our Lord’s answers, but his commendations were ironical, 
In what an unfavourable light do you put our Saviour’s kindness to poor 
sinners, who prostrate themselves at his feet, and there ask the way to © 
heaven! If “cursed is he that maketh the blind to wander out of their 
earthly way ;” how can you, upon your principles, exculpate our Lord 
for doing this with respect to the blind seekers, who inquire the way that 
leads to eternal life and heaven ? 

But this is not all. It is evident, that although from the taunting tone 
of Micaiah’s voice, Ahab directly understood that the answer given 
him was ironical ; yet, lest there should be deception in the case, the pro- 
phet dropped the mask of irony, and told the king the naked truth before 
they parted. Not so Jesus Christ, if Solifidianism is the Gospel: for 
although neither the ruler nor:the lawyer suspected that his direction 
and approbation were ironical, he let them both depart without giving 
them, or his disciples who were present, the least hint that he was send- 
ing them upon a fool’s errand. Therefore, if setting sinners upon keep- 
ing the commandments in faith to go to heaven be only showing them 
the cleaner way to hell, as Zelotes sometimes intimates, nobody ever 


SECOND.] 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 55 


pointed sinners more clearly to hell than our blessed Lord. This mis- 
take of Zelotes is so much the more glaring, as the passages which he 
supposes to be ironical agree perfectly with the sermon on the mount, 
and with Matt. xxv ; two awful portions of the Gospel, which I am glad 
the Solifidians have not yet set aside as evangelical ironies. 

Once more: if our Lord’s direction was not true with regard to the 
coyenant of grace, it was absolutely false with respect to the covenant 
of works; for as the ruler and the lawyer had undoubtedly broken the 
Adamic law of perfect innocence, they never could obtain life by keeping 
that law, should they have done it to the highest perfection for the time 


to come. 


Therefore, which way soever Zelotes turns himself, upon his 


scheme our Lord spoke either a deceitful irony, or a flat untruth :— 


I resume the Scales. 


Tam the Lord* thy God, who 
brought thee out of the house of 
bondage. 

The righteousness of faith speak- 
eth on this wise :—Say not in thine 
heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? 
&c, or, Who shall descend into the 
deep? &c. But what saith it? The 
word is nigh thee, Rom. x, 5, &c. 


Christ hath redeemed us from the 
curse of the law, being made a curse 
for us, Gal. iii, 13. 

If they that are of the [anti-evan- 
gelical] law be heirs, faith is made 
void, and the promise of none effect, 
Rom, iy, 14. 


I do not frustrate the grace of 
God: for if righteousness came by 
the [anti-evangelical] law ; [or if it 
came originally by any] law ; then 
Cunrist is dead in vain, Gal. ii, 21. 


I, through the law, am dead to 
the Jaw. Ye are not under the law. 
Now we are delivered from the 
law, [both as a cumbrous burden of 
carnal commandments ; as a heavy 
load of typical ceremonies ; and as 


Il. 

Thou shalt have no other god 
before me, &c, [to the end of the 
decalogue. ] 

This commandment, which I com- 
mand thee this day, is not, &c, far 
off. It is not in heaven, that thou 
shouldst say, Who shall go up for 
us to heaven? &c. Neither is it 
beyond the sea, that thou shouldst 
say, Who shall go over the sea for 
us? &c. But the word is very nigh 
unto thee, Deut. xxx, 11, &c. 

So speak ye, and so do, as they 
that shall be judged by the law of 
liberty, James ii, 12. 

If ye fulfil the royal law, &c, 
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
thyself,” ye do well: for he shall 
have judgment without mercy, that 
hath showed no mercy, James i, 
8, 13. 

God sending his own Son, &c, 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, 
that the righteousness of the law 
might be fulfilled in [or by] us who 
walk not after the flesh, &c, Rom. 
vill, 3, 4. 

Do we make void the Jaw through 
faith? God forbid: yea, we establish 
the law. Whosoever shall keep the 
whole law, and yet offend in one 
point, he is guilty of all, James i, 
10. Think not that I am come to 


* Here observe, that God prefaces the decalogue by evangelically giving him- 
self to the Jews as their God—a gracious God, who had already “‘ saved them out 
of the land of Egypt,” Jude 5, and who had a peculiar right to their faith and 


grateful evangelical obedience. 


56 


I. 
an anti-evangelical, Christless cove- 
nant of works,| Gal. i, 19; Rom. 
vi, 14; vii, 6. 


Curist is the end of the law for 
righteousness to every one that be- 
lieveth, Rom. x, 4. 


O foolish Galatians, who hath 
bewitched you, that you should not 
obey the truth, before whose eyes 
Curisr has been evidently set forth, 
crucified among you, &c? Received 
ye the Spirit by the works of the 
law, or by the hearing of faith? 
Gal. ii, 1, 2. 

Stand fast in the liberty where- 
with Curist hath made us free, 
and be not entangled again with the 
yoke of bondage; [i. e. with the 
curse of a Christless Jaw, or with 
the galling yoke of Mosaic rites,] 
Gal. v, 1. 

If there had been a law given, 
which could have given life, verily 
righteousness should have been by 
the law, Gal. i, 21. [Note. Vo 
law of works can justify a sinner : 
he must be justified by grace, or not 
at all. If he is not crushed into an 
atom for his native sinfulness, or 
sent instantly to hell for his first 
sin ; or if he has an opportunity to 
repent and turn, all is of grace, 
and springs from “the free gift,” 
which “is come upon all men unto 


justification of life,” Rom. v, 11.] 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 


fl. 

destroy the law, &c. Verily I say 
unto you, &e, one jot or tittle shall 
in no wise pass from the [moral] 
Jaw till all be fulfilled. Whosoever 
therefore shall break one of these 
least commandments, é&c, shall be 
called the* Jeast in the kingdom of 
heaven, Matt. v, 17. 

Ye are his servants whom ye 
obey ; whether of sin unto death, or 
of obedience unto righteousness, 
Rom. vi, 16. , 

We are not without law to God, 
but under the law to Christ, 1 Cor. 
ix, 21. Let brotherly Jove continue. 
He that loveth another hath fulfilled 
the law. Love is the fulfilling of 
the law. Fulfil the law of Christ, 
Heb. xiii, 1; Rom. xiii, 10; Gal. 
vi, 2. 

Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and 
do not do the things which I say? 
Those mine enemies, who would 
not that I should reign over them, 
[or who would not receive and keep 
my law, | bring hither and slay them 
before me, Luke vi, 46; xix, 27. 

Awake to righteousness, and sin 
not, 1 Cor. xv, 34. Except your 
righteousness shall exceed the right- 
eousness of the scribes, &c, ye shall 
in no case enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, Matt. vy, 20. As it is writ- 
ten, He hath dispersed abroad ; he 
hath given to the poor. His right- 
eousness remaineth for ever. Now 
he that ministereth seed to the 
sower, multiply your seed sown, 
and increase the fruits of your right- 
eousness, 2 Cor. ix, 9, 10. And it 
shall bet our righteousness, if we 
observe to do all these command. 
ments, Deut. vi, 25. 


* Thus apostates (by breaking one of the ten commandments, and not repent- 
ing a@cording to the privilege, which ‘ the law of liberty” allows in the day of 
salvation) are Jast, though they were once first. I say apostates ; because our Lord, 
St. Paul, and St. James, evidently speak of believers, i. e. of persons already in 
the kingdom of heaven, or in the Christian dispensation. - 

+ The reader will be glad to see what judicious Calvinists make of this pas. 
sage. Diodati, one of Calvin’s most famous successors, comments thus upon it: 


SECOND. ] 


I. ' 

By the works of the law [when 
it is opposed to Christ, or abstracted 
from the promise] shall no flesh 
living be justified [at any time, | 
Gal. ii, 16. 


When you have done all that is 
commanded you, say, We are un- 
profitable servants, Luke xvii, 10. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 57 


II. 

In the day of judgment—by thy 
words thou shalt be justified. ‘The 
doers of the law [of liberty—the 
law connected with the Gospel 
promises] shall be justified, Matt. 
xu, 37; Rom. i, 10. 

Cast the unprofitable servant into 
outer darkness ; there shall be weep- 
ing and gnashing of teeth, Matt. 


xxv, 30. 


If I am not mistaken, the balance of these scriptures stent that, 


although we are not under the moral law without Christ, yet we are under 
it to Christ, both as a rule of life and a rule of judgment : or, to speak 
more plainly, although we shall not be judged by the law of innocence, 
‘. e. the moral law abstracted from Gospel promises, yet we shall be 
judged by the “law of liberty,” i. e. the moral law connected with the 
promise of the Gospel: an evangelical law this, under which the merci- 
ful God for Christ’s sake put mankind in our first parents, when he gra- 
ciously promised them “the seed of the woman,” the atoning Mediator, 
the royal “ Priest, after the order of Melchisedec.” 


SECTION VIII. 


Showing what is God’s work, and what is our own ; how Christ saves 
us, and how we work out our own } salvation. 


FIRST SCALE. a 


Containing the weights of FREE 
GRACE. 

The hour is coming and now is, 
when the dead shall hear the voice 
of the Son of God; and they that 
hear shall live, John v, 25. 

I am come, that they might have 
tire, and that they might have it 
more abundantly, John x, 10. 

You hath he. guickened, who 
were dead in trespasses and sins, 


Eph. ii, 1. 


SECOND SCALE. 
Containing the weights of FREE 
WILL. 

Awake, thou that sleepest, arise 
from the dead, and Christ shall 
give thee light, Eph. v, 14. 


Except ye eat the flesh of the 
Son of man, &c, ye have no LIFE 
in you, John vi, 53. 

Ye will not come unto me, that 
ye might have life, John v, 40. 


‘God, out of his fatherly benignity and clemency, shall accept from us, his 
children, this endeavour and study to keep his law, instead of a perfect righteous- 
ness, &c. All this discourse ought to be referred to the’new obedience, &c, 
which is the plainer, because most of these statutes were concessions, remedies, 
and expiations for sin.” (Drop. in loc.) Mr. Henry is exactly of the same senti- 
ment. ‘Could we perfectly fulfil but that one command of loving God with all 
our heart, &c, and could we say we had never done otherwise, that would be so 
our righteousness as to entitle us to the benefits of the covenant of innocency, &c. 
But that we cannot pretend to; therefore our sincere obedience shall be accepted 
through a Mediator, to denominate us (as Noah was) ‘ righteous before God.” 
(Henry in loc.) 


58 EQUAL CHECK. ; _ [Part 


I, Il. 

You being dead in your sins, &c, Thou hast a name that thou liv- 
hath he quickened together with est, and art dead, &c. Strengthen 
him, Col. ui, 13. the things that remain, and are 

ready to die, Rev. ii, 1, 2. 

Except a man be born again, he Every one that loveth—every one 
cannot see the kingdom of God, that does righteousness, is bern of 
John iii, 3. God, 1 John iy, 7; ui, 29. 

The wind bloweth where it list- | Humble yourselves under the 
eth, &c, so is every one that is born mighty hand of God, that he may. 
of the Spirit, John iii, 8. exalt you. For God resisteth the 

proud and giveth grace to the hum- 
ble, 1 Pet. v, 6, 5. 

Being born again,not of corrupti- § Wherefore, &c, lay apart all 
ble seed, but, &c, by* the word of filthiness, &c, and receive,* &c, the 
God; and this is the word, which ingrafted word, James i, 19, 21. 
by the Gospel is preached unto you, Whosoever believeth, &c, is born 
1 Pet. i, 23, 25. Of his own will of God [according to his dispensa- 
begat he us with the word of truth, tion,] 1 John vy, 1. As many as 
James i, 18. réceived him, to them [of his own 
gracious will] gave he power to be- 
come the sons of God, even to them 
that believe on his name, John i, 12. 
For ye are all the children of God 
by faith in Christ Jesus. Faith 
cometh by hearing '[which is our 
work,] Gal. iii, 26; Rom. x, 17, 
They [the Bereans] receiyed the 
word with all readmess of mind, 
and searched the Scriptures daily, 
whether those things were so; 
therefore many of them believed : 
[i. e. received “the ingrafted word,” 
and by’ that means were “born 
again” according to the Christian 
dispensation ;] Acts xvil, 11, 12. 

Christ our passover is sacrificed Purge out the. old leaven [of 
for us, 1 Cor. vi, 7. wickedness] that ye may be a new 

lump. (Jbid.) 


* How mistaken were the divines that composed the synod of Dort, when 
speaking of regeneration, they said, without any distinction, (/lam Deus in no- 
bis sine nobis operatur,) ‘‘God works it in us, without us!” Just as if God be- 

_ lieved in us without us! Just as if we received the word without our receiving 
of it! Just as if the sower and the sun produced corn without the field that bears 
it! What led them into this mistake was, no doubt, a commendable desire to 
maintain the honour of free grace. However, if by regeneration they meant the 
first communication of that fructifying, ‘‘saving grace, which has appeared to 
all men”—the first visit, or the first implanting of ‘‘ that light of life, which en- 
lightens every man that cometh into the world,” they spoke a precious truth: 
for God bestows this free gift upon us, absolutely ‘‘ without us!” Nor could we 
ever do what he requires of us in the scale of free will, if he had not first given 

_ us a talent of grace, and if he did not continually help us to use it aright when 

we have a good will. 


SECOND. ] 


. = * 
The blood of Christ cleanseth us 
from all sin, 1 John i, 7 


By one offering he hath perfect- 
_ed for ever [in atoning merits] them 
that are sanctified, Heb. x, 14. 


He by himself purged our sins. 
Of the people there was none with 
him, Heb. i, 3 ; Isa. Ixiii, 3. [Here 
the incommunicable glory ‘of mak. 
ing a proper atonement for sin is 
secured to our Lord.] 


He put away sin by the sacrifice 
of himself, Heb. ix, 26. 

Ye are sanctified, &c, in the 
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the 
Spirit of our God, 1 Cor. vi, 11. 


Surely one shall say, In [or 
through] the Lord have I right- 
eousness and strength, Isa. xlv, 24. 

I will make mention of thy right- 
eousness, even of thine only, &c. 
My motth shall show forth thy 
righteousness, and thy salvation all 
the day, Psa. lxxi, 15, 16. 


My righteousness is near, my 
salvation is gone forth, Isa. li, 5. 


I bring near my righteousness,’ 


it shall not be far off; and my sal- 
vation shall not tarry, Isa. xlvi, 13. 


God sent his Son Jesus to bless 
you, in turning, &c, you from your 
iniquities, Acts ui, 26. 


Him [Christ] hath God exalted 
to" give repentance to Israel, and 
forgiveness of sins, Acts v, 31. 

Be it known unto you, that 
through this man [Christ] is preach- 
ed unto you the forgiveness of sins, 
Acts xxxi, 38. 

Not by works of righteousness 
which we have done; but of his 
mercy he saved us, Tit. in, 5. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


59 
I. 


Cleanse your hands, ye sinners ; 
and purify your hearts, ye double 
minded, James iv, 8. 

Let us go on unto perfection. 
This one thing I do, &c. I press 
toward the mark, Heb. vi, 1; Phil. 
li, 13. 

Ye have purified your souls in 
obeying the truth. Verily I have 
cleansed my heart in vain, and 
washed my hands in innocency. 
[The word in vain refers only to a 
temptation of David when he “ saw 
the prosperity of the wicked,”] 1 
Pet. i, 22; Psa. Ixxiu, 13. 

Put away the evil of your doing 
from before mine eyes, Isa. i, 16. 

If a man purge himself from 
these, he shall be a vessel unto ho- 
nour, sanctified, and meet for the 
Master’s use, 2 Tim. ii, 21. 

In every nation he that worketh 
righteousness is accepted of Him, 
Acts x, 35. 

Then [when thou dealest thy 
bread to the hungry, bringest the 
poor to thy house, &c,] ten shall 
thy righteousness go before thee, 
and the glory of the Lord shall be 
thy rereward, Isa. lviii, 8. 

Whosoever does not righteous- 
ness is not of God, 1 John iii, 10. 

The Lord rewarded me [David] 
according to my righteousness, ac- 
cording to the cleanness of my 
hands, 2 Sam. xxii, 21. 

I thought on my ways, and turned 
my feet unto thy testimonies. I made 
haste, and delayed not to keep thy 
commandments, Psa. exix, 59, 60. 

Repent ye, therefore, and be con- 
verted, that your sins may be blot- 
ted out, Acts iii, 19. 

Arise: why tarriest thou? Wash 
away thy sins; calling upon the 
name of the Lord, Acts xxii, 16. 


Except your righteousness ex- 
ceed the righteousness of the 
scribes, ye shall zn no case enter 


60 
E 


And this is the name whereby he 
shall be called the Lord our right- 
eousness, Jer. xxiil, 6. 

Them that have obtained like 
precious faith with us, through the 
righteousness of God and our Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ, 2 Pet. i, 1. 


Curist is made unto us of God, 
&c, righteousness, 1 Cor. i, 30. 


Even for mine own sake will I 
do it, Isa. xlviii, 11. 

No man can say that Jesus is the 
Lord, but by the Holy Ghost—the 
Spirit of faith, 1 Cor. xu, 3; 2 Cor. 
iy, 13. 

I will put my Spirit within you, 
Ezek. xxxvi, 27. I will pour out 
of my Spirit upon all flesh, Acts 
ii, 17. 

Hear me, O Lord, that this peo- 
ple may know, &c, that thou hast 
turned their heart back again, 1 
Kings xviii, 37. 

A new heart will I give you, &c. 
I will take away the stony heart, 
&c, and I will give you a heart of 
flesh, Ezek. xxxvi, 26. 

The preparation of the heart in 
man is from the Lord. Thou wilt 
prepare their heart, [the heart of the 
humble,] Prov. xvi, 1; Psa. x, 17. 

The Lord will give grace and 
glory, Psa. lxxxiv, 11. 

Exceeding great and precious 
promises are given us; that by these 
you might be partakers of the Di- 
vine nature, 2 Pet. i, 4. 

Come, for all things are now 
ready, Luke xiv, 17. 


The Lord will wait to be gra- 
cious, Isa. xxx, 18. 
Be not dismayed, for I am thy 
et I will strengthen thee, Isa. 
10. 


EQUAL CHECK. 


“self ready. 


[parr 


Ik. 
into the kingdom of heaven, epouce 
v, 20.- 

He that does rightcbiiiiiee nal 
righteous, even as he [Christ] is 
righteous, 1 John iii, 7. 

Though Noah, Daniel, and Job: 
were in it [the place about to be 
destroyed] they should deliver but 
their own souls by their righteous- 
ness, Ezek. xiv, 14. 

The righteousness of the R1cHT- 
Eous shall be upon him, Bite 
xvili, 20. 

I will for this be inquired of, &c 
to do it for them, Ezek. xxxvi, 37. 

Your heavenly Father will give 
his Holy Spirit to them that ask 
him—to them that obey him, lake 
xi, 13; Acts x, 32. 

Repent and be baptized, &c, inn 
stand to your baptismal vow,] and 
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost, Acts ii, 38. 

Take with you words, and turn 
to the Lord. Turn ye even to me 
with all your heart, Hos. xiv, 23 
Joel ii, 12. ’ 

Harden not your heart: rend 
your heart: make you a new heart, 
for why will ye die? Psa. xev, 8; 
Joel ii, 13; Ezek. xviii, 31. 

Nevertheless, there are good 
things found in thee, in that, &c, 
thou hast prepared thine heart to 
seek God, 2 Chron. xix, 3. 

No good thing will he withhold 
from them that walk uprightly. (Ib.) 

Having therefore these promises, 
let us cleanse ourselves from all 
filthiness of the flesh and spirit, 2 
Cor. vii, 1. 

The Lamb’s wife hath made her- 
Be ye also ready, Rey. 
xix, 7; Matt. xxiv, 44. 

Wait on the Lord, &c: wait, I 
say, on the Lord, Psa. xxvii, 14, 

David encouraged himself in his 
God, 1 Sam. xxx, 6. They that 
wait on the Lord shall renew their 
strength, Isa. xl, 31. 


SECOND.] 


I. 
Yea, I will uphold thee with the 
right hand of my righteousness, 
Isa. xli, 10. 


I will sprinkle clean water upon 
you, and ye shall be clean: from 
all your filthiness, and from all your 
idols will I cleanse you, Ezek. xxxvi, 
25. 

I the Lord do keep it [the spirit- 
ual vineyard] lest any hurt it. I 
will keep it night and day, Isaiah 
XXVil, 3. 

I will give them a heart of flesh, 
that they may walk in my statutes, 
Ezek. xi, 20. 


David my servant shall be king 
over them; and, &c, they shall 
walk in my judgments, Ezekiel 
XXXVH, 24. 

For we are his workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus unto the 
good works which God [by his word 
of command, by providential occur- 
rences, ‘and by secret intimations 
of his will, wponroi.ace] hath before 
prepared, that we should walk in 
them, Eph. ii, 10. 


God hath saved us, and called us 
with a holy canine ; not according 
to our works, but according to his 
own purpose and grace, which was 
given us in Christ before the world 
began, 2 Tim. i, 9. 


1 will give them a heart to know 
me, that I am the Lord, Jer. xxiv, 7. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


61 
Il. 


Cursed is the man that maketh 
flesh his arm, Jer. xvii, 5. Cast © 
thy burden upon the Lord, and he 
will sustain thee, Psa. lv, 22. 

Wash ye, make you clean, Isa. 
i, 16. O Jerusalem, wash thy 
heart from wickedness, that thou 
mayest be saved, Jer. iv, 14. 


Keep thyself pure, 1 Tim. v, 22. 
Keep thy heart with all diligence, 
for out of it are the issues of life, 
Prov. iv, 23. 

What does the Lord require of 
thee but, &c, to walk humbly with 
thy God? Micah vi, 8. And-_ 
Enoch* set himself to walk with 
God, Gen. v, 24. 

He that saith he abideth in him, 
[God manifested in the flesh,] ought 
himself also so to walk, even as he 
walked, 1 John i, 6 

And as many as walk according 
to this rule, peace be on them and 
mercy, Gal. vi, 16. That they 
might set their hope in God, &c, 
and not be as their fathers, a stub- 
born generation, &c, that set not 
their heart aright, &c, and refused 
to walk in his law. But as for me, 
I will walk in mine integrity, Psa. 
Ixxvili, 7, 10; xxvi, 11. 

The grace of God, that bringeth 
salvation, hath appeared unto - all 
men, teaching us that we should 
live soberly, &c. Give diligence 
to make your cattine sure. How 
shall we escape if we neglect so 
great salvation? Titus ii, 11, 12; 
2 Pet. i, 10; Heb. ii, 3. 

Then shall we know, if we follow 
on to know the Lord, Hos. vi, 3. 


* The word in the original is in the conjugation Hithpahel, which signifies to 


cause one’s self to do a thing. 


Our translation does not do it justice. 


Nor can 


Zelotes reasonably object to the meaning of the word used by Moses, unless he 
can prove that Enoch had no hand, and no foot, in his walking with God; and 
that God dragged him as if he had been a passive cart, or a recoiling cannon. 
However, I readily grant that Enoch did not set himself to walk with God without 
the help of that “saving grace, which has appeared to all wen,” and which so 
many ‘receive in vain.” 


$2 


I. 
I will put my fear in their hearts, 
Jer. xxxii, 40. 


The Lord thy God will circumcise 
thine heart, Deut. xxx, 6. 

Iwill put my law in their inward 
parts, and write it in their hearts, 
Jer. xxxi, 33. 


We love him, because he first 
loved us, 1 John iv, 19. 

By grace ye are savep, through 
faith ; and that not of yourselves, 
it is the gift of God, Eph. ii, 8. 
It is of faith, that it might be by 
grace, Rom. iv, 16. 


Not for thy righteousness, &c, 
dost thou go and possess their land, 
Deut. ix, 5. 

Not of works, lest any man should 
boast, Eph. ii, 9. 


Thou hast hid those things from 
the wise and prudent, [in their own 
eyes, | and revealed them unto babes, 
Luke x, 21. 


EQUAL CHECK. 


_ [Parr 


Il. 

They shall not find me, &c, for 
that they did not choose the fear of 
the Lord, Prov. i, 29. \ 

Circumcise therefore the foreskin 
of your heart, Deut. x, 16. 

Let every man be swift to hear, 
&c. Receive with meekness the 
ingrafted word, which is able to 
save your souls, James i, 19, 21. 
Thy word have I hid in my heart, 
Psa, cx ie 

The Father loveth you, because 
ye have believed, John xvi, 27. 

Believe, &c, and thou shalt be 
SAVED, Acts xvi, 81. Receive not 
the grace of God in vain, 2 Cor. 
vi, 1. Looking diligently lest any 
man fail of [or be wanting to] the 
grace of God, Heb. xii, 15. 

Inherit the kingdom, &c, for I 
was hungry, and ye gave me meat, 
&c, Matt. xxv, 34. 

Charge them, &c, to do good, 
&c, that they may lay hold on- 
eternal life, 1 Tim. vi, 17, &c. 

Who is wise, and he shall under- 
stand these things? prudent, and he 
shall know them? Hos. xiv, 9. 
None of the wicked shall under- 
stand, but the wise shall understand, 
Dan. xii, 10. 


If I am not mistaken, the balance of the preceding scriptures shows 


that Pharisaism and Antinomianism are equally unscriptural; the har- 
Monious opposition of those passages evincing, (1.) That our free will 
is subordinately a worker with God’s free grace in every thing but a 
proper atonement for sin, and the first implanting of the light which 
enlightens every man that comes into the world: such an atonement 
having been fully completed by Christ’s blood, and such an implanting 
being entirely performed by fis Spirit. (2.) That Honestus is most 
dreadfully mistaken, when he makes next to nothing of free grace and 
her works. (3.) That Zelotes obtrudes a most dangerous paradox upon 
the simple, when he preaches finished salvation in the Chrispian sense 
of the word. And (4.) That St. Paul speaks as the oracles of God, 
when he says, “ God worketh in you, &c, therefore work ye out your 
own salvation.” 
~- 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 63 


SECOND.] 


SECTION IX. 


Displaying the most wonderful work of free grace, thé general redemp- 
tion of the lost world of the ungodly by Jesus Christ : and the most 
astonishing work of free will, the obstinate neglect of that redemp- 
tion, by those who do despite to the Spirit of grace. 


Hlonestvs has such high thoughts of his uprightness and good works, 
that he sometimes doubts if he is a lost sinner by nature, and if the vir- 
tue of Christ’s blood is absolutely necessary to his justification. And 
the mind of Zelotes is so full of absolute election and reprobating par- 
tiality, that he thinks the sacrifice of Christ was confined to the little 
part of mankind which he calls “the Church, the pleasant children, 
Israel, Jacob, Ephraim, God’s people, the elect, the little flock,” &c. 
Those happy souls, if you believe him, are loved with an everlasting 
love, and all the rest of mankind are hated with an everlasting hate. 
Christ never bled, never died for these. God purposely let them fall nm 
the first Adam, and absolutely denied them all interest in Christ the 
second Adam, that they might necessarily be wicked and infallibly be 
damned, “to illustrate his glory by their destruction.” 

To rectify those mistakes; to show Honesius that ail men, without 
exception, are so wicked by nature as to stand in need of Christ’s atoning 
blood ; and to convince Zelotes that Christ was so good as to shed it for 
all men, without exception ; I throw into my Scales some of the weights 
stamped with general redemption: I say some, because others have 
already been produced in the third section. 


How att men are temporally re- 
deemed by Christ’s blood. 


THE WEIGHTS OF FREE GRACE. 
Nore. General redemption by price 
and free grace cannot fail, be- 
cause it is entirely the work of 
Curist, who does all things well. 


We see Jesus, who was made a 
little lower than the angels [i. e. 
was made man] for the suffering 
of death, &c, that he, by the grace 
of God, should taste death for every 
man, Heb. ii, 9. f 


When we were yet without 
strength, Christ died for the ungod- 
ly, Rom. y, 6. The Son of man is 
come to save that which is lost, 
Luke xix, 10. Behold ithe Lamb 
of God, that, taxeth away the sin 
of the world, John i, 29. God so 
loved the world, that he gave his 
only begotten Son, &c, that the 


Why some men are not eternally 
redeemed by Christ’s Spirit. 


THE WEIGHTS OF FREE WILL, 
Nore. General redemption by 
power and free will can and 
does fail, because many refuse 
to the last, subordinately “to 
work out their own salvation.” 
As I live, saith the Lord God, I 
have no pleasure in the death of 
the wicked; but that the wicked 
turn from his way and live ;—iurn 
ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; 
for why will ye die, O house of 
Israel? Ezek. xviii, 23 ; xxxiii, 11. 
And row, &c, judge, I pray you, 
between me and my vineyard. 
What could have been done more 
to my vineyard, that I have not 
done in it? Wherefore, when I 
looked that it should bring forth 
grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? 
And now I will, &c, lay it waste, 
&c, I will also command the clouds 


64 EQUAL 


I. 

world through him might be saved 
[upon Gospel terms,] John iii, 16, 
17. This is indeed the Christ, the 
Saviour of the world, John iv, 42. 
We have seen and do testify, that 
the Father sent the Son to be the 
Saviour of the world, 1 John ivy, 
14, Behold, I bring you good 
tidings of great joy, which shall be 
to all people ; for unto you is born, 
&c, a Saviour, who is Christ the 
Lord, Luke ii, 10, 11. 

Christ is our peace, who hath 
made both [Jews and Gentiles] 
one, &c, that he might [on his 
part] reconcile both unto God by 
the cross, Eph. ii, 14,16. [Now 
Jews and Gentiles are equivalent to 
the world.| God was in Christ re- 
conciling the world unto himself, not 
imputing their trespasses unto them, 
[when they believe,] 2 Cor. v, 10. 

It pleased the Father, &c, having 
made peace by the blood of his 
cross, by him to reconcile all things 
unto himself, by him, I say, whether 
they be things in earth, or things 
in heaven. And you, &c, hath he 
reconciled, &c, through death, to 
present you holy, &c, zf ye con- 
tinue in the faith, &c, and be not 
moved away from the hope of the 
Gospel, &c, which is preached to 
every creature that is under heaven, 
Col. i, 19, 23. 


We trust in the living God, who 
is the Saviour of all men, especially 
of those that believe : [because such 
obediently submit to the terms of 
evernal salvation ; for initic] salva- 
tion depends on no terms on our 
part,] 1 Tim. iv, 10. 

The philanthropy [or] kindness 
of God our Saviour toward man 
appeared, Tit. iii, 4. The bread 
of God giveth life unto the world : 
the bread that I will give for the life 
of the world, John vi, 33, 51. 


CHECK. _ [PaRT 


II. . 

that they rain no rain uponit. For 
the vineyard of the Lord is the 
house of Israel, and the men of 
Judah are his pleasant plant; and 
he looked for judgment, but behold 
oppression; for righteousness, but 
behold a cry, Isa. vy, 3, 7. They 
have turned unto me the back, and 
not the face ; though I taught them, 
rising early, Jer. xxxil, 33. 


And now, because ye have done 
all these works, saith the Lord, and 
I spake unto you, rising up early, 
and speaking, but ye heard. not ; 
and | called you, but ye answered 
not ; therefore, é&c, I will cast you 
out of my sight, &c ; therefore pray 
not for this people, &c, for I will 
not hear thee, Jer. vii, 18, 15, 16. 


Wilt thou not from this time cry 
unto me, my Father, &c? Hast 
thou seen that which backsliding 
Israel hath done? &c. And I 
said, after she had done all these 
things, Turn thou unto me ; [return 
unto me, for I have redeemed thee, 
Isa. xliv, 72,] but she returned not. 
And, &c, when for all the causes 
whereby backsliding Israel commit- 
ted adultery, I had put her away, 
and given her a bill of divorce, yet 
her treacherous sister Judah feared 
not, but went and played the har- 
lot also, Jer. ii, 4—8: 

If thou wilt receive my words, 
&c, so that thou incline thine ear to 
wisdom, and apply thine heart to 
understanding, &c, then shalt thou 
understand the fear of the Lord; 
and find the knowledge of God, 
Prov. ii, 1, &e. 

As the girdle cleaveth to the 
loins of a man, so have I caused to 
cleave to me the whole house of, 
Israel, saith the Lord; that they 
might be unto me for a people, é&c. 
but they would not hear. Therefore 


. 


BECOND.] 


Jesus said, I am the light of the 
world. I came, &c, to save the 
world, John viii, 12; xii, 47. That 
the world may believe thou hast 
sent me, John xvii, 21. Thisisa 
faithful saying, and worthy of all 
acceptation, [or, of all men to be 
received] that Christ came into the 
world to save* sinners, of whom I 
am chief, 1 Tim. i, 15. 

I exhort, that first of all supplica- 
tions, &c, and giving of thanks be 
made for all men, &c, for this is 
good and acceptable, [not in the 
sight of Zelotes,] but in the sight of 
God our Saviour, who will have all 
men to be saved, and come to the 
knowledge of the truth. For there 
is, ésc, one Mediator between God 
and men, the man Christ, who 
gave himself a ransom for all, &c. 
I will, therefore, that men pray 
every where, &c, without doubting, 
Labi ae. 

Mine eyes have seen [Christ] 
thy salvation, which thou hast pre- 
pared before the face of all people, 
a light to lighten the Gentiles, and 
the glory of thy people Israel, 
[z. e. the Jews,] Luke ti, &c. It 
is a light thing that thou shouldst 
be my servant, to raise up the 
tribes of Jacob, [%. e. the Jews,] 
&e. I will also give thee for a light 
to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be 
my salvation unto the end of the 
earth, Isa. xlix, 6. God, &c, 
preached before the Gospel to 
Abraham, saying, In thee, [7. e. thy 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


65 
Il. 


&c, I will not pity, nor spare, nor 
have mercy, but destroy them, Jer. 
xiii, 11, 12, 14. 

This is the condemnation, that 
light is come into the world, and 
men loved darkness rather than 
light, because their deeds were evil. 
For every one that [actually] does 
evil, hateth the light, neither cometh 
to the light, lest his deeds should 
be reproved. But he that does 
truth, cometh to the light, John iii, 
19, &c. 

Jeshurun, [%. e. the righteous, ] 
waxed fat and kicked, &c. He 
forsook God, &c, and lightly es- 
teemed the rock of his salvation, 
&c. They sacrificed to devils, 
é&c. And, when the Lord saw it, 
he abhorred them, because of the 
provoking of his sons and daugh- 
ters. And he said, I will hide my 
face from them, &c, for a fire 
is kindled in mine anger, and shall 
burn to the lowest hell, é&c. I will 
spend mine arrows upon them, 
Deut. xxxii, 15, 23. 

Because I have called, and ye 
refused, I have stretched out my 
hand, and no man regarded ; but 
ye have set at naught all my 
counsel, and would none of my 
reproof; I also will mock when 
your destruction cometh as a whirl- 
wind. Then shall they call upon 
me, but I will not answer, &c ; for 
that they hated knowledge, and did 
not choose the fear of the Lord, 
&c, Prov. i, 24, &c. . If ye walk 
contrary to me, &c, I will bring 
seven times more plagues upon 
you, &c. And if ye will not be 


* If Christ came to save sinners, yea, the chief of sinners, did his goodness, 


impartiality, equity, truth, and holiness, permit him unconditionally to reprobate: 
any sinner Jess than the chief? And if he came to save sinners, the chief not 
excepted, why does Zelotes except all that die in unbelief ? If they do not believe, 
and do their part as redeemed souls, is it right to infer that Christ did not die for 
them and do his part as the Redeemer or Saviour of all men? Especially since 
the Scriptures testify that eternal salvation is suspended on our works of faith ;, 
and that the reprobates perish, because they ‘‘deny in works the Lord that 
bought them ?” 
Vou. II. 5 


6 


seed, which is Christ] shall all na- 
tions [yea] all families of the earth 
be blessed, Gal. ii, 8, 16; Gen. 
xii, 3. 


In him [the Word made flesh] 
was life, and the life was the light 
of men; and the light shineth [even] 
in the darkness, &c, [that] com- 
prehended it not. John came for 
a witness, to bear witness of the 
light, that all men through it [dV 
aurs gwiog] might believe, &c. 
That was the true light which 
lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world, John i, 4, &c. 


EQUAL 


CHECK. [PART 


Il. 

reformed by these things, I will 
punish you yet seven times, &c. 
And if ye wili not for all this 
hearken to me, &c, I will cast 
down your carcasses upon the car- 
casses of your idols, &c, and my soul 
shall abhor you, Ley. xxvi, 21-30. 

Every branch in me that beareth 
not fruit [during the day of salva- 
tion] he taketh away, &c, and it is 
withered, and men gather them, and 
cast them into the fire and they 
are burned, John xv, 2-6. Ye 
shall bow down to the slaughter, 
because when I called ye did not 
answer, Isa. lxv, 12. 


From the preceding scriptures it appears, that as in a vine some 


branches are nearer the root than others; so among mankind some 
men have a stronger and more immediate union with Christ than others ; 
but, so long as their day of salvation lasts, all men have some interest 
in him; there being as many ways of being in Christ, as there are dis- 
pensations of Gospel grace. That infants are interested in him, seems 
evident from Rom. v, 18, and Mark x, 14: and that Cornelius, for ex 
ample, was in Christ as a just heathen, before he was in him as a Jew- 
ish proselyte, much more before he’was in him as a Christian believer, 
is not less evident from Matt. xxv, 29; Psa. 1,23; Luke xvi,10,11. But 
when the expression, bezng in Christ, is taken in its most confined sense, 
‘as it is in some of the epistles, it means a being so fully acquainted with, 
‘and so intimately united to Christ, as to enjoy the privileges peculiar to 
the Christian dispensation, like Cornelius, when he had believed the 
Gospel of Christ, and was baptized with the Holy Ghost. To say that 
he was in every respect without Christ before, is to strike a blow at the 
root: it is to suppose that a man can be accepted out of the Beloved, 
work righteousness without Christ’s assistance, and “ bring forth fruits 
meet for repentance,” in a total separation from the vine. Thus itis, how- 
ever, that the Solifidianism of Zelotes meets with the Pharisaism of 
‘Honestus. 
I. Il. 
All men should honour the Son [have purged thee [I have done 


-[by believing on him,] John v, 23. 
I will draw all men to me, John 
xil, 32. The free gift came upon 
all men, Rom. y, 18. The saving 
grace of God hath appeared unto 
all men, Tit. ii, 11. God giveth 
to all men liberally, and upbraideth 
not, Jamesi, 5. The Lord is good 
ito all gt loving to every man] 


the part of a Saviour] and thou 
wast not purged: [thou hast not 
done the part of a penitent sinner, | 
Ezek. xxiv, 18. Behold, I stand at 
the door and knock; if any man 
hear my voice, and open the door 
[by the obedience of faith] I will 
come in to him, and will sup with 
him, and he with me, Rey. iii, 20. 


SECOND.] 


4 
and his tender mercies are over 
all his works, Psa. cxlv, 9. If one 
died for all, then were all dead. 
He died for all, that they which live, 
should, &c, live to him who died 
for them, 2 Cor. v, 14, 15. 

He is despised and rejected of 
men, &c. We [men] esteemed 
him not, &c. Surely he was 
wounded for our transgressions, 
&c, and with his stripes we .are 
[initally, and his seed, persevering 
believers, completely] healed. All 
we [men] like sheep have gone 
astray: we have turned every one 
to his own way, and the Lord hath 
laid on him the iniquity of us all, 
&c. He poured out his soul unto 
death, &c ; he bore the sin [o»35] 
of the* multitudes, and made inter- 
cession for the transgressors, Isa. 
iti, 8-6, 12. If any man sin, we 
have an Advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ the righteous : and he 
is the propitiation for our sins; and 
not for ours only, but also for the 
sins of the whole world, 1 John ui, 
1, 2. 


GENERAL REDEMPTION and FREE 
GRACE are the gracious spring 
whence flow the general, sincere, 
and rational missions, Gospel calls, 
commands, exhortations, and expos- 
tulations which follow. 


God hath reconciled us to him- 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


° 
67 


Of a truth I perceive that God 1s 
no respecter of persons, Acts x, 34. 
If ye have respect to persons, ye 
commit sin, James ii, 9. It is 
written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. 
And if ye call on the Father, who, 
without respect of persons, judgeth 
according to every man’s work, 
pass the time of your sojourning 
here in fear; forasmuch as ye 
know that ye were redeemed, &c, 
with the precious blood of Chiist, | 
1 Pet. i, 17, 18. [How different 
is this Gospel from the Gospel of 
the day! And if to elect and to 
reprobate is to judge that myriads 
of unborn people shall be eternally 
loved or hated without any respect 
to their tempers and actions, what 
can we say of doctrines, which fix 
upon God the spot that Solomon 
describes in the following words?] 
It is not good to have respect of 
persons in judgment. He that 
says to the wicked, Thou art right- 
eous, [or he that says to what is 
not, Thou art wicked, and I uncon- 
ditionally appoint thee for eternal 
destruction,| him shall the people 
curse: nations shall abhor him, 
Prov. xxiv, 23, 24. 

Through the LIBERTY OF OUR 
WILL we may IMPROVE Or NEGLECT 
so great redemption ; we may make, 
or refuse to make our sincere elec- 
tion and rational calling sure; as 
appears from the following scrip- 
tures :— 

We pray you, in Christ’s stead, be. 


* The first signification of the Hebrew word 72 (BR) is a multitude; and as 
Isaiah uses it in the plural number, I hope Zelotes will not think that I take 
an undue liberty, when I render it the multitudes: namely, the multitudes of 
“transgressors” mentioned in the same yerse; or the multitudes of men that 


‘have turned every one to his own ways.” 


See verses 3, 6. P 


68 


I. 
self by Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. v, 
18, 

Him [Christ] God hath exalted 
to give repentance to Israel—[and] 
to the Gentiles, [i. e. to all man- 
kind, who are made up of Jews 
and Gentiles,] Acts v, 31; xi, 18. 
[Hence it is that] God now com- 
mandeth all men every where to re- 
pent; because he will judge the 
world in righteousness, Acts xvii, 
30, 31. 

Thou [Paul] shalt be his [Christ’s] 
witness unto all men. To make all 
men see what is the fellowship of 
the mystery [of redeeming and sane- 
tifying love,] Acts xxii, 15; Eph. 
ill, 9. 
Look unto me, and be ye saved, 
all the ends of the earth, Isa. xlv, 
22. Come unto me, all ye that tra- 
vel [with sin] and are heavy laden 
[with troubles] and I will give you 
rest, Matt. xi, 28. 

Jesus spake unto them, saying, 
All power is given unto me in hea- 
ven, and in earth: go ye therefore 
and teach [proselyte] all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the 

- Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost. [A sure proof this that 
the Son has redeemed all nations, 
and purchased for them the influ- 
ences of the Holy Ghost, Matt. 
xxviii, 18, 19.] 

Go into all the world, and preach 
the Gospel to every creature, &c, 
and they went forth preaching every 
where, Mark xvi, 15, 20. Whoso- 

ever will, let him take of the water 
of life freely, Rev. xxii, 17. The 
Lord is not willing that any should 
perish, but that alJ should come to 
repentance, 2 Pet. iu, 9. 

Come now [ye rulers of Sodom, 
ye people of Gomorrah] and let us 
reason together, saith the Lord. 
Though your sins be as scarlet, they 
shall be as white as SNOW, &c. Ye 
shall eat the good of the land, Isa. 
i, 10, 18, 19. 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 


Il. 
ye reconciled to God, 2 Cor. vy, 
20. 

And they all, with one consent, 
began to make excuse, &c. 1 have 
married a wife, and therefore I can- 
not come, é&c. Then the master 
of the house being angry said, &c, 
None of those men, who were bid- 
den [or called, and refused to make 
their calling and election sure] shall 
taste of my supper, Luke xvii, 18. 


How long, ye simple ones, will ye 
love simplicity? and the scorners 
delight in scorning? and fools hate 
knowledge? Turn you at my re- 
proof: behold, I will pour out my 
Spirit unto you, Proy. i, 22,23. * 

I am the Lord thy God, &c, open 
thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. 
But my people would not hearken to 
my voice, and Israel would none 
of me, Psa. Ixxxi, 10, 11. 


I call heaven and earth to record 
this day against you, that I have set 
before you life and death, blessing 
and cursing: therefore choose life, 
that thou mayest live, Deut. xxx, 
19. Mary hath chosen the good 
part, Luke x, 42. Choose you this 
day whom ye will serve, &c, but as 
for me, and my house, [we have 
made our choice] we will serve the 
Lord, Josh. xxiv, 15. 

He that rejecteth me, &c, hath 
one that judgeth him. The word 
[ot the Gospel] that I have spoken, 
the same shall judge him in the last 
day, John xii, 48. We will not have 
this man to reign over us. ‘Those, ~ 
&c, who would not that I should 
reign over them, slay them before 
me, Luke xix, 14, 27. 

If ye be willing and obedient, &c. 
But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall 
be devoured with the sword ; for the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, 
verses 19, 20. 


SECOND.] 


I. 

Ho, every one that thirsteth [for 
life and happiness] come ye to the 
waters, and he that hath no money ; 
come ye, buy wine and milk, with- 
out money and without price. In- 
cline* your ear, hear, and your soul 
shall live ; and I will make an ever- 
lasting covenant with you, even the 
sure mercies of David, &c. Seek 
ye the Lord while he may be found ; 
and call upon him while he zs near. 
Let the wicked forsake his way, &c, 
and return unto the Lord, for he 
will abundantly pardon, Isa. lv, 1-7. 

Wisdom standeth in the top of 
high places: she crieth at the gates, 
at the entry of the city, &c, Unto 

~you, O men, I call, and my voice is 
to the sons of men, &c. Hear, for 
I will speak excellent things, &c. 
Receive my instruction, rather than 
choice gold, &c. Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me; for I 
am meek and lowly in heart, and 
ye shall find rest unto your souls; 
for my yoke is easy, and my burden 
is light, Prov. vii, 2, &c ; Matt. xi, 
29, 30. 

All the people [of bloody devoted 
Jerusalem] ran together unto them 
[Peter and John :] and when Peter 
saw it, he answered, Ye [all the 
people] are the children of the coye- 
nant, which God made, saying to 
Abraham, “And in thy seed shall 
all the kindreds of the earth be 
blessed.” Unto you [all the people] 
first [as being Jews] God, &c, sent 
his Son Jesus to bless you [all the 
people] by turning away every one 
of you from his iniquities, Acts iu, 
9, 11, 12, 25, 26. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


69 


II. 

Thus spake the Lord of hosts, 
&c. But they refused to hearken, 
and pulled away the shoulder and 
stopped their ears, that they should 
not hear. Yea, they made their 
hearts as an adamant stone, lest 
they should hear the law, and the 
words which the Lord of hosts hath 
sent in his Spirit, &c. Therefore 
it is come to pass, that as he cried, 
and they would not hear; so they 
cried, and I would not hear, saith 
the Lord of hosts, Zech. vii, 8, 13. 


I also will choose their delusions, 
&c, because when I called, none 
did answer ; when I spake, they did 
not hear; but they did evil before 
mine eyes, and chose that in which 
I delighted not, Isa. Ixvi, 4. 


The Jews were filled with envy, 
and spake against those things 
which were spoken by Paul; con- 
tradicting and blaspheming. Then 
Paul waxed bold, and said, It was 
necessary that the word of God [the 
Gospel of Christ] should first have 
been spoken to you: but, seeing ye 
put it from you, and judge your- 
selves unworthy of eternal life, lo, 
we turn to the Gentiles: for so hath 
the Lord commanded, Acts xiii, 45, 
46. [Query. How could it be neces- 
sary “ that the Gospel should first be 
spoken to those Jews,” if God had 
eternally fixed, that there should be 
no Gospel,—no Saviour, for them 7] . 


* Zelotes represents the ‘‘ sure mercies of David,” and “‘ the everlasting cove- 


nant,” as absolutely unconditional. 


But I appeal to Candidus: does not this 


passage mention four requisites on our part? Inclining our ear: hearing: seek- 


ing the Lord: and forsaking our wicked way? 


And do not we accordingly find, 


Acts xiii, 34, that many of those to whom St. Paul offered those ‘“‘ sure mercies,” 
missed them by ‘‘ contradicting,” instead of ‘inclining theirear?” 


70 


E 

To whom [the Gentiles] I send 
thee to open their eyes, and to turn 
them from darkness to light, and 
from the power of Satan unto God ; 
that they may receive forgiveness 
of sins, and an inheritance among 
them who are sanctified by faith 
that is in me, Acts xxvi, 17, 18. 

Behold, Now is the accepted 
time! behold, now is the day of 
salvation, 2 Cor. vi, 2. Where- 
fore, beloved, account that the long 
suffering of the Lord is salvation ; 
even as our beloved brother Paul 
also hath written to you [in the next 
passage,| 2 Pet. ii, 9, 15. De- 
spisest thou the riches of God’s 
goodness, and forbearance, and 
long suffering; not knowing that 
the goodness of God leadeth thee 
to repentance, and of consequence 
to eternal salvation? Rom. ui, 4. 


This is one of the “ clouds of Scripture witnesses, 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 


II. 

Them that perish because they 
received not the love of the truth, 
that they might be saved. And 
for this cause God shall send them 
strong delusions, &c, that they all 
might be damned, who believed not 
the truth, but had pleasure in un- 
righteousness, 2 Thess. ii, 10, &c 

O Jerusalem, &c, how often 
would I have gathered together thy 
children [among whom were the 
chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees] 
as a hen doth gather her brood un- 
der her wings, and ye would not? 
Luke xiii, 34. Thus saith the 
Lord of hosts, Behold, I will bring 
upon this city, &c, all the evil that 
I have pronounced against it; be. 
cause they have hardened their 
necks that they might not hear my 
words, Jer. xix, 15. The Lord is 
our God, and we are the people of 
his pasture and the sheep of his 
hand. ‘To-day, if ye will hear his 
voice, harden not your hearts as in 
the provocation, &c, when your 
fathers saw my works. Forty 
years long I was grieved with that 
generation, and said, It is a people 
that do err in their hearts, &c.— 
To whom I sware in my wrath, 
that they should not enter into my 
rest, Psa. xlv, 7, &c. 

” which we produce 


in favour of redeeming free grace and electing free will. To some peo- 
ple this cloud appears so big with evidence, and so luminous, that they 
think Honestus and Zelotes, with all the admirers of Socinus and Calvin, 
can never raise dust enough to involve it in darkness, at least before 
those who have not yet permitted prejudice to put out both their eyes. 
It is worth notice, that Honestus has not one Scripture to prove that 
any man can be saved without the Redeemer’s atonement. On the 
contrary, we read that there is salvation “in no other;” that there is 
“no other name,” or person, “‘ whereby we must be saved ;” and that 
“0 man cometh to the Father but by him—the light of the world, and 
the light of men.” And it is remarkable, that although the peculiar 
gospel of Zelotes is founded upon the doctrine of a partial atonement, 
there is not in all the Bible one passage that represents “the world” as 
being made up of the elect only ; not one text which asserts that Christ 
made an atonement for one part of the world exclusively of the other ; 
no, nor one word which, being candidly understood according to the con- 


SECOND. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. int 


text, cuts off either man, woman, or child from the benefit of Christ’s 
redemption; at least so long as the day of grace and initial salvation 
lasteth. Nay, the very reverse is directly or indirectly asserted: for 
our Lord threatened his very apostles with a hell, ‘where the worm 
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” if they did not “ pluck out the 
offending eye.” St. Peter speaks of those who “bring swift destruc- 
tion upon themselves by denying the Lord that bought them.” And St. 
Paul mentions “destruction of a brother for whom Christ died ;” yea, 
and the “much sorer punishment of him who had trodden under foct 
the Son of God, had counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he 
was sanctified, [and consequently redeemed,] an unholy thing, and had 
done despite to the Spirit of grace,” by which Spirit he and other apostates 
«were once enlightened, and had tasted the heavenly gift—the good 
word of God, and the powers of the world to come,” Heb. x, 29; vi, 4. 

Hence it appears, that of all the unscriptural doctrines which preju- 
diced divines have imposed upon the simple, none is more directly con- 
trary to Scripture than the doctrine of Christ’s particular atonement.— 
An Arian can produce, “ My Father is greater than I;” and a Papist, 
«This is my body,” in support of their error; but a Calvinist cannot 
preduce one word that excludes even Cain and Judas from the tem- 
porary interest in Christ’s atonement, whereby they had “the cay of 
initial salvation,” which'they once enjoyed and abused. 

The tide of Scripture evidence in favour of general redemption is so 
strong, that at times it carries away both St. Augustine and Calvin, not- 
withstanding their particular resistance. The former says, A%grotat 
humanum genus, non morbis corporis, sed peccatis. Jacet toto orbe ter- 
rarum ab oriente usque ad occidentem grandis egrotus. Ad sanandum 
grandem egrotum descendit omnipotens Medicus. (Aue. De Verbis 
Domini, Sermon 59.) “ Manxxinp is sick, not with bodily diseases, but 
with sins. The nueEe paTIeNnT lies ALL THE WORLD over, stretched 
from east to west. To heal the huge patient, the omnipotent Physician 
descends from heaven.” As for Calvin, in a happy moment, he does 
not scruple to say: Se rori mMuNDO propitium ostendit, cum sine excep- 
tione omnes ad Christi fidem vocat, que nihil aliud est quam ingressus 
in vitam. (Cau. in Job, ili, 15, 16.) “God shows himself propitious 
to ALL THE WORLD, when he, without exception, invites ALL MEN to be- 
lieve in Christ ; faith being the entrance into life.” Agreeable to this, 
when he comments upon these words of St. Paul, “There is one Me- 
diator between God and men, the man Christ,” he says with great truth: 
Cum itaque ComMUNE mortis sue beneficium omntBUs esse velit, injuriam 
uli faciunt, qui opinione sua quempiam arcent a spe salutis. (Catv. in 
1 Tim. ui, 5.) “Since therefore Christ is willing that the benefit of his 
death should be common To atu MEN; they do him an injury, who, by 
their opinion, debar any one from the hope of salvation.” If, Calvin 
himself being judge, “they do Christ an injury, who by their opinion 
debar any one from the hope of salvation,” how great, how multiplied 
an injury does Zelotes do to the Redeemer, by his opinion of particular 
redemption ; an opinion this, which effectually debars all the unre- 
deemed from the least well grounded hope of ever escaping the dam- 
nation of hell, be their endeavours after salvation ever so strong and 
ever so many. 


72 EQUAL CHECK. [PaRT 


As I set my seal with fuller confidence to the doctrine of our Lord’s 
Divine carriage upon the cross, when I hear the centurion who headed 
his executioners cry out, “Truly this was the Son of God:” so I em- 
brace the doctrine of general redemption with a fuller persuasion of its 
truth, when I hear Calvin himself say, “Forasmuch as the upshot of 
a happy life consists in the knowledge of God, lest the door of hap- 
piness should be shut against any man, God has not only implanted in 
the minds of men, that which we call THE sEED OF RELIGION; but he 
has likewise so manifested himself in all the fabric of the world, and 
presents himself daily to them in so plain a manner, that they cannot 
open their eyes, but they must needs discover him.” His own words 
are: Quia ultimus beate vite finis in Dei cognitione positus est, ne cut 
preclusus esset ad felicitatem aditus, non solum hominum mentibus in- 
didit illud, quod dicimus RELIGIONIS SEMEN ; sed ita se patefecit in toto 
mundi opificio, ac se quotidie palam offert, ut aperire oculos nequeant quin 
eum aspicere cogantur. (Inst. lib. i, cap. 5, sec. 1.) Happy would it 
have been for us, if Calvin the Calvinist had been of one mind with 
Calvin the reformer. Had this been the case, he would never haye 
encouraged those who are called by his name to despise “ THE SEED OF 
RELIGION which God has implanted in the minds of men, lest the door 
of happiness should be shut against any one.” Nor would he incon- 
sistently kave taught his admirers to do Christ, and desponding souls, 
that very “injury,” against which he justly bears his testimony in one 
of the preceding quotations. 

Although Zelotes has a peculiar veneration for Austin and Calvin, 
yet when they speak of redemption as the oracles .of God, he begs 
leave to dissent from them both. 

To maintain, therefore, even against them, his favourite doctrine of 
absolute election and preterition, he advances some objections, three or 
four of which deserve our attention, not so much indeed on account of 
their weight, as on account of the great stress which he lays upon 
them. 

Oxsection First. “You assert,’ says he, “that the doctrine of 
general redemption is Scriptural, and that no man is absolutely repro- 
bated: but I can produce a text strong enough to convince you of your 
error. Ifthe majority of mankind were not unconditionally reprobated, 
our Lord would at least have prayed for them: but this he expressly 

refused to do in these words, “I pray for them [my disciples:] I pray 
not for the world,” John xvii, 9. Here the world is evidently excluded 
from all interest in our Lord’s praying breath; and how much more 
from all interest in his atoning blood ?” 

Answer. I have already touched upon this objection, (Third 
Check, vol. first.) To what I have said there, I now add the following 
fuller reply :—Our Lord never excluded “the world” from all share in 
his intercession. When he said, “I pray for them, I pray not for the 
world ;” it is just as if he had said, “The blessing which I now ask for 
my believing disciples, I do not ask ‘for the world;’ not because 1 
have absolutely reprobated the world, but because the world is not in 
a capacity of receiving this peculiar blessing.” Therefore, to take 
occasion from that expression to traduce Christ as a reprobating re- 
specter of persons, is as ungenerous as to affirm that the master of a 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 73 


grammar school is a partial, capricious man, who pays no attention to 
the greatest part of his scholars, because, when he made critical re- 
marks upon Homer, he once said, “ My lecture is for the Greek class, 
and not the Latin.” 

That this is the easy, natural sense of our Lord’s words, will appear 
by the following observations. (1.) Does he not just after (verse 11) 
mention the favour which he did not ask for the world? “Holy Fa- 
ther, keep, through thy name, those whom thou hast given me, [by the 
decree of faith,] that they may be one as we are.” (2.) Would it not 
haye been absurd in Christ to pray the Father to keep “a world” of 
unbelievers, and to make them one? (38.) Though our Lord prayed at 
first for his disciples alone, did he not, before he concluded his prayer, 
(verse 2,) pray for future believers? And then giving the utmost lati- 
tude to his charitable wishes, did he not pray (verse 21) “that the 
world might believe” —and (verse 23) “that the world might know that 
God had sent him?” (4.) Was not this praying that the world might 
be made partakers of the very biessing which his disciples then enjoyed : 
witness these words, (ver. 24, 25,) “O righteous Father, the world has 
not known thee: but I have known thee, and these [believers] have 
known that thou hast sent me?” (5.) “The world hateth me,” said 
our Lord. Now if he “never prayed for the world,” how could he be 
said to have loved and prayed for his enemies? How badly will Ze- 
lotes be off, if he stands only in the imputed righteousness of a man, 
who would never pray for the bulk of his enemies or neighbours? But 
this is not all; for (6. If our Lord “never prayed for the world,” he 
acted the part of those wicked Pharisees who “laid upon other people’s 
shoulders heavy burthens which they took care not to touch with one of 
their fingers ;” for he said to his followers, “ Pray for them who despite- 
fully use you and persecute you,” [that is, pray for the world,| Matt. v, 
44. But if we believe Zelotes, “he said and did not:” like some im- 
placable preachers who recommend a forgiving temper,she gave good 
precepts and set a bad example. 

I ask Candidus’ pardon for detaining him so long about so frivolous 
an argument: but as it is that which Zelotes most frequently produces 
in favour of particular redemption, and the absolute reprobation of the 
world, I thought it my duty to expose his well meant mistake, and to 
wipe off the blot which his opinion (not he) fixes upon our Lord’s cha- 
racter ;—an opinion this, which represents Christ’s prayer, “ Father, 
forgive them,” to be all of a piece with Judas’ kiss. For, if Christ 
prayed with his lips, that his worldly murderers might be forgiven, while 
in his heart he absolutely excluded them from all interest in his inter- 
cession, and in the blood, by which alone they could be forgiven ; might 
he not as well have said, My praying lips salute, but my reprobating 
heart betrays you: hail reprobates and be damned ? 

Oxsection Seconp. “All your carnal reasonings and logical sub- \ 
tleties can never overthrow the plain word of God. The Scriptures 
cannot be broken, and they expressly mention particular redemption. 
Rey. v, 8, 9, we read that ‘four-and-iwenty elders having harps, sung 
a new song, saying, &c, Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, 
out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.’ Again, Rev. 
xiy, 1, &c, we read of one hundred and forty-four thousand ‘harpers 


74 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


that stood with the Lamb on Mount Sion, having his Father’s name 
written in their foreheads, &e, singing as it were a new song which no 
man could learn but the one hundred and forty-four thousand who were 
redeemed from the earth, &c; these were redeemed from among men.’ 
Now if all men were redeemed, would not St. John speak nonsense if 
he said that the elect were redeemed from among men? But as he 
positively says so, it follows that the generality of men are passed by, 
or left in a reprobate state absolutely unredeemed.” 

Answer. ‘There is a redemption by power distinct from, though 
connected with our redemption by price. That redemption is in many 
things particular ; consisting chiefly in the actual bestowing of the tem 
poral, spiritual, or eternal deliverances and blessings which the atoning 
blood has peculiarly merited for believers ; “Christ being the Saviour 
of all men, but especially of them that believe.” Various degrees of 
that redemption are pointed out in the following scriptures, as well as 
in the passages which you quote out of the book of Revelation. “The 
angel who redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads. The Lord hath 
redeemed you from the hand of Pharaoh. When these things begin 
to come to pass, then look up, for your redemption draweth nigh. Ye 
are sealed, &c, until the redemption of the purchased possession. 
We ourselves groan, waiting for the redemption of our body.” When 
therefore some eminent saints sing, “Thou hast redeemed us to God by 
thy blood [sprinkled upon our consciences through faith] out of every 
kindred,” &c, it is not because Christ shed more blood upon the cross 
for them than for other people; but because, through the faithful im- 
provement of the five talents, which sovereign, distinguishing grace had 
entrusted them with, they excelled in virtue, and “ overcame the accuser 
of the brethren by the blood of the Lamb,” more gloriously than the 
generality of their fellow believers do. 

One or two arguments will, I hope, convince the reader that Zelotes 
has no right to press into the service of free wrath the texts produced 
in his objection ; as he certainly does, when he applies them to a parti- 
cular redemption by price. (1.) God promised to Abraham, that “all 
the nations, yea, all the kindreds of the earth should be blessed in his 
seed, that is, in Christ, the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.” 
And our Lord commands, accordingly, that his redeeming work be 
preached to “every creature among all nations: but if there be no 
redemption but that of those elders and saints mentioned Rey. y, 8, 9, 
and said to be “redeemed to God, out of every kindred, and tongue, 
and people, and nation, it’ follows, that every kindred, and tongue, and 
people, and nation,” is left unredeemed in flat contradiction to God’s 
promise, as well as to the general tenor of the Scriptures. (2.) The 
number of the saved is greater than that of the redeemed. For St. 
John, Rev. vii, 9, describes the saved as “a great multitude which no 
man could number.” But the persons “ redeemed from the earth and 
redeemed from among men,” are said to be just one hundred and forty. 
four thousand: whence it follows, either that an “innumerable multi- 
tude” of men will sing “salvation to the Lamb,” without having been 
redeemed; or that one hundred and forty-four thousand siuls are “a 
multitude which no man can number ;” and that as the number of these 
‘‘redeemed from the earth and from among men,” is already completed, 


SECOND. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. : 75 


all the rest of mankind are consigned over to inevitable, finished dam- 
nation. ‘Thus, according to the objection which I answer, Zelotes him- 
self is passed by, as well as “every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
and nation.” O ye kindreds and tongues, ye people and nations,—ye 
English and Welsh, ye Scotch and Irish, awake to your native good 
sense ; nor dignify any longer with thé name of “doctrines of grace,” 
inconsistent tenets imported from Geneva,—barbarous tenets that rob 
you nationally of the inestimable jewel of redemption, and leave you 
nationally in the lurch with Cain and Judas—with wretches whose re- 
probation (if we believe Zelotes) was absolutely insured before your 
happy islands emerged out of the sea, and the sea out of the chaos. 

Oxzsecrion THIRD. But we are pressed with rational, as well as 
Scriptural arguments. To show that Christ, who was lavish of his 
tears over justly reprobated Jerusalem, was so sparing of his blood, that 
he would not shed one drop of it for the world, and for the reprobated 
nations therein, much less for the arch reprobate, Judas: to show this, 
I say, Zelotes asks, “ How could Christ redeem Judas? Was not Judas’ 
soul actually in hell, beyond the reach of redemption, when Christ bled 
upon the cross ?” 

Answer. The fallacy of this argument will be sufficiently pointed out 
by retorting it thus :—‘ How could Christ redeem David? Was not 
Dayid’s soul actually in heaven, beyond the need of redemption, when 
Christ bled upon the ignominious tree 1” The truth is, from the foundation 
of the world Christ intentionally shed his blood, to procure a temporary 
salvation for all men, and an “ eternal salvation for them that obey him, 
and work out their salvation with fear and trembling.” With respect to 
David and Judas, “in the day of their visitation,” through Christ’s 
intended sacrifice, they had both an “accepted time ;” and, while the 
one by penitential faith secured eternal salvation, the other by obstinate 
unbelief totally fell from initial salvation, and by his own sin “ went to 
his own,” and not to Adam’s “ place.” 

Ozsection FourTH. As to the difficulty which Zelotes raises from a. 
supposed “ defect in Divine wisdom, if Christ offered for all a sacrifice 
which he foresaw many would not be benefited by :” I once more observe 
that all men universally are benefited by the sacrifice of the Lamb of 
God. _ For ali men enjoy a day of initial and temporary salvation,.in 
consequence of Christ’s mediation: and if many do not improve their 


' redemption so as to be eternally benefited thereby, their madness is no 


more a reflection upon God’s wisdom, than the folly of those angels who 
did not improve their creation. Again: this objection, taken from Divine 
wisdom, and levelled at our doctrine, is so much the more extraordinary, 
as, upon the plan of particular redemption, Divine wisdom (to say nothing 
of Divine veracity, impartiality; and mercy) receives an eternal blot. 
For how can “ God judge the world in wisdom according to the Gospel?” 
Rom. ti, 16. How can he wisely upbraid men with their impenitency, 
and condemn them because “they have not believed in the name of his 
only begotten Son,” John iii, 18, if there never was for them a Gospel 
to embrace, repentance to exercise, and an only begotten Son of God 
to believe in? 

And now, reader, sum up the evidence arising from the scriptures 
balanced, the arguments proposed, and the objections answered in tlus 


76 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


section; and say whether the doctrines of bound will and curtailed 
redemption, or, which is all one, the doctrines of necessary sin, and 
absolute, personal, yea, national reprobation, can, with any propriety, 
be called either sweet “doctrines of grace,” or Scriptural doctrines of 
wisdom. 


SECTION X. 


The doctrine of free grace is farther maintained against Honestus ; 
and that of free will and just wrath against Zelotes. 


The scale of FREE GRACE and susT 
wrath in God. 

Resistible FREE GRACE is the spring 
of all our graces and mercies. 
The Father, as Creator, gives to 
the Son, as Redeemer, the souls 
that yield to his paternal draw- 
ings; and they who resist those 
drawings, cannot come to the Son 

for rest and liberty. 


Ir is Gop, who worketh in you 
both to will and to do of his good 
pleasure. ['That is, God, as Crea- 
tor, has wrought in you the power 
to will and to do what is right: 
God, as Redeemer, has restored 
you that noble power which was 
lost by the fall: and God, as Sanc- 
tifier, excites and helps you to make 
a proper use of it. Therefore 
“srieve him not :” for, as it is his 
good pleasure to help you now, so, 
if you “do despite to the Spirit of 
his grace,” it may be his good 
pleasure “‘to give you up to a re- 
probate mind,” and to “swear in 
his anger that his Spirit shall strive 
with you” no more. ‘That this is 
the apostle’s meaning, appears from 
his own words to those very Phi- 
lippians, in the opposite scale.] 
Phil. ii, 13. 

Thy people [shall, or will be] 
willing in the day of thy power: 
or, as we have it in the reading 
Psalms, In the day of thy power 
shall the people offer free will offer- 
ings, Psa. cx, 3. 


The scale of FREE WILL in man, 
without FREE wrath in God. 

Perverse FREE WILL is the spring 
of all our sins and curses. 

The Son, as Redeemer, brings to 
the Father, for the promise of the 
Holy Ghost, the souls that yield 
to his filial drawings ; and they 
who resist those drawings, can- 
not come to the Father for the 
Spirit of adoption. 

WHEREFORE work out your own 
salvation with fear and trembling. 
Arise and be doing, and the Lord 
be with you, 1 Chron. xxii, 16. Do 
all things without disputing, &c, 
that I may rejoice, that I have not 
run in vain, neither laboured in 
vain. I follow after, 7f that I may 
apprehend that for which I am ap- 
prehended of Christ. This one 
thing I do, &c, I press toward the 
mark, &c. Be followers of me, 
for many walk—enemies of the 
cross of Christ, whose end is de- 
struction. 'Those things, which ye 
have seen in me, do: and the God 
of peace shail be with you, Phil. ui, 
12, &c; ili, 12, &e; iv, 9, &e. 


I am not [personally] sent but to 
the lost sheep of the house of Is- 
rael. But my people, &c, would 
none of me, Matt. xv, 24; Psa. 
Ixxxi, 11. He came to his own, 
and his own received him not, 


SECOND. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. : 77 


John i, 11. The power of the Lord was present to heal them, but the 
Pharisees murmured. They rejected the counsel of God against them- 
selves, Luke v, 17, 30; vii, 30. IfI by the finger [i. e. the power] of 
God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God [the day of God’s 
power] is come upon you, Luke xi, 15, &c. He did not many mighty 
works [i. e. he did not mightily exert his power] there, because of their 
unbelief. He could do there no mighty work, [consistently with his 
wise plan,] and he marvelled because of their unbelief, [which was the 
source of their unwillingness,] Matt. xii, 58; Mark vi, 5,6. Now the 
things which belong unto thy peace, &c, are hid from thine eyes, be- 
cause thou knewest not the day of [my power, and of] thy visitation, 
Luke xix, 42, &c. How often would I have gathered thy children, as 
a hen does gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not, Luke 
xiii, 84. [Any one of those scriptures shows, that free grace does not 
necessitate free will; and all of them together make a good measure, 


running over into Zelotes’ bosom. ] 

God hath exalted him [Christ] 
to give repentance, Acts vy, 31. 
God peradventure [i. e. if they are 
not judicially given up to a repro- 
bate mind, and they do not obsti- 
nately harden themselves] will give 
them [that oppose themselves] re- 
pentance to the acknowledging of 
the truth, 2 Tim. ii, 25. 


Every good gift, &c, is from 
above, and cometh down from the 
Father of lights, James i, 17. Fazth 
is the gift of God, Eph. ii, 8. They 
rehearsed how God had opened the 
door of faith [in Christ] to the Gen- 
tiles, Acts xiv, 27. To you it is 
given, on the behalf of Christ, to 
believe in him, Phil. i, 29. 


When the Gentiles heard this 
they were glad, and as many as 
were [reraywevor] disposed* for, 


God is willing that all should 
come to repentance, 2 Pet. iii, 9. 
God’s goodness leadeth thee to re- 
pentance, Rom. ii, 4. And the rest 
of men, which were not killed by 
these plagues, yet repented not, 
Rey. ix, 20. Then began he to 
upbraid the cities, &&c, because they 
repented not, Matt. ix, 20. I gave 
her space to repent, and she re- 
pented not, Rev. ui, 21. 

Faith cometh by hearing [the 
work of man,] Rom. x, 17. Lord, 
I believe, [not thou believest for 
me,| help thou my unbelief, Mark 
ix, 24. He upbraided them with 
their unbelief, Mark xiv, 14. How 
is it ye have no faith? Mark iy, 40. 
How can you believe, who receive 
honour one of another? John v, 44. 
The publicans believed, &c. And 
ye, when ye had seen it, repented 
not afterward, that ye might be- 
lieve, Matt. xxi, 30. Thomas said, 
I will not believe, John xx, 25. 
Having damnation, because they 
have cast off their first faith, 1 Tim. 
V5 EQ 

These (the Jews of Berea) were 
more noble [or candid] than those 
of Thessalonica, in that they re- 


* The Rev. Mr. Madan, in his “ Scriptural Comment upon the Thirty-nine 


Articles,” second edition, p- 71, says, ‘‘ This method of construction is attended 
with the disadvantage of giving the Greek language a sense which it disowns, 
and therefore to be rejected ;” and in support of this assertion, and of Calvinism, 


¥ 


78 EQUAL CHECK. - {PART 
I. Il. 


[our translators say ordained to] ceived the word with all readmess 
eternal life believed, Acts xiii, 48. of mind and searched the Scriptures 


he quotes Mr. Leigh’s “‘ Critica Sacra.” But I think, most unfortunately, since 
in the very next page we have it under Mr. Leigh’s, and of course under Mr. Ma- 
dan’s vwn hand, that the learned scholiast ‘‘ Syrus renders it [the controyerted 
word] ‘ dispositi,’ [pisposrp,] for he knew not that the heretics of our day would 
dream of understanding reraypevor, &c, to signify INWARDLY DisposED.” Now as 
‘the remoustrants” are immediately after by name represented as ‘‘ the heretics 
of our day,” I beg leave to vindicate their heresy: though I fear it must be at 
the expense of Mr. Madan’s and Mr. Leigh’s “‘ orthodoxy.” 

First, then, take notice, reader, that these gentlemen grant us all we contend 
for, when they grant that the word which our translators render ‘‘ ordained,” 
means also ‘disposed, placed, ordered,” or *‘ ranged, as soldiers that keep their 
ranks in the field of battle,” which is the ordinary meaning of the expression in 
the classics. Now, according to Mr. Madan’s scheme, the ‘‘ disposition” of the 
persons that believed was merely ‘extrinsic, outward.” They had no hand in 
the matter, God ‘‘disposed” them by his necessitating grace, as Bezaleel “‘ dis- 
posed” the twelve precious stones which adorned Aaron’s breastplate. But, 
according to our supposed ‘‘ heresy,” the free will of those candid Gentiles (in 
subordination to free grace) had a hand in ‘‘ disposing them to take the kingdom 
of heaven by violence.” They were like willing soldiers, who obey the orders 
of their general, and ‘ range” or ‘‘ dispose” themselves to storm a fortified town. 

(2.) But, says Mr. Madan, “the Greek language disowns this sense.” To this 
assertion I oppose all the Greek lexicons I am acquainted with, and (for the sake 
of my English readers) I produce Johnson’s English dictionary, who, under the 
word ‘‘tactics,” which comes from the controverted word ‘ tatto,” informs us 
that ‘‘tactics” is ‘the art of ‘ranging’ men in the field of battle 7” and every 
body knows that before men can be ranged in the field, two things are absolutely 
necessary ; an authoritative, directing skill in the general, and an active, obe- 
dient submission in the soldiers. This was exactly the case with the Gentiles 
mentioned in the text; before they could be ‘‘ disposed for eternal life,” two 
things were absolutely requisite; the helpful teaching of God’s free grace, and 
the submissive yielding of their own free will, touched by that grace which the 
‘‘indisposed (at least at that time) received in vain.” 

(3.) It is remarkable that the word reraypevos occurs but in one other place in 
the New Testament, Rom. xiii, 1. ‘The powers that are, are reraypevor,*or- 
dained or placed.” And I grant that there it signifies a Divine, ‘‘ extrinsic” 
appointment only. But why? ‘Truly because the apost’e immediately adds, 
vzo ze dex, “* They are ordained or placed or Gov.” Now, if the word reraypevos 
alone necessarily signified ‘‘ ordained, disposed, or placed or Gop,” as Mr. Ma- 
dan’s scheme requires; the apostle would have given himself a needless trouble 
in adding the words, ‘‘ or Gop,” when he wrote to the Romans; and as St. Luke 
adds them not in our text, it is a proof that he leaves us at liberty to think, ac- 
cording to the doctrine of the Gospel axioms, that the Gentiles, who believed, 
were ‘‘disposed” to it by the concurrence of free grace and free will—of Gop 
and THEMSELVES. God ‘‘ worked,” to use St. Paul’s words, and they ‘* worked 
out.” 

(4.) A similar scripture will throw light upon our text. Rom. ix, 22, we read 
that ‘God endureth with much long suffering the vessels of wrath xarnoricpeva 
ritTep for destruction.” The word ‘ fitted,” in the original, is exactly in the 
sdme voice and tense as the word ‘‘ ordained” or ‘‘ disposed” in the text. Now 
if Mr, Macan’s observation about ‘the Greek language” be just, and if the Gen- 
tiles who believed were entirely ‘‘dispgsed or Gop to eternal life,” so these ‘ yes- 
sels of wrath” were entirely “ fitted or Gop for destruction.” But if he, and 
every good man, shudders at the horrid idea of worshipping a God who abso- 
lutely ‘‘ fits” his own creatures ‘for destruction :’—if the words kxarnpricpeva ets 
azwAcav mean not only ‘inwardly fitted,” but seLr rirrep rather than Gop ritTeD 

‘for destruction,” why should not reraypevor ers Cwny acwrtoy Mean SELF DISPOSED 
as well as Gop pisposep “for eternal life ?” 

(5.) St. Luke, who wrote the Acts, is the best explainer of the meaning of his 


¢ 


SECOMM.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 79 


KR If. 
daily, whether those things were 
so: therefore many of them be- 
lieved, Acts xvii, 11, 12. 
He that hath an ear to hear, let They have ears to hear, and hear 
him hear what the Spirit saith. Rev. not; for they are a rebellious house, 
li, 7. izek. xil, 2. 


own expression. Accordingly, Luke ii, 51, we find that he applies to Christ a 
word answering to, and compounded of that of our text. He was, says he, (vzo- 
racsopevos) ‘* subject or subjected to his parents.” Now I appeal to my readers, 
and ask whether the remonstrants deserve the name of “ dreaming heretics” for 
believing, (1.) That our Lord’s subjection to his parents was not merely “ out- 
ward” and passive, as that of an undutiful child who is subject to his superiors, 
when, rod in hand, they have forced him to submit. And (2.) That it was “in. 
ward” and active, or, to speak plainer, that ‘‘ he subjected himself” of his own 
free will to his parents. 

(6.) St. Paul informs us that the ‘‘ veil of Moses is yet upon the heart of the 
Jews, when they read” the Old Testament; and one would be tempted to think 
that Calvin’s veil is yet upon the eyes of his admirers, when they read the New , 
Testament. What else could have hindered such learned men as Mr. Leigh and 
Mr. Madan from taking notice, that when the sacred writers use the passive 
voice, they do it frequently in a sense which answers to the Hebrew voice “hith- 
pahel,” which means ‘to cause oneself to do a thing.” I beg leave to produce 
some instances. 1 Cor. xiv, 32, ‘‘The spirits of the prophets uzoraccerar are sub- * 
ject [that is, subject themselves] to the prophets.” Rom. x, 3, ‘‘ Oux uzerayncav, 
They have not been subjected, or, (as our translators, Calvinists as they were, 
have not scrupled to render it,) They have not submitted themselves to the 
righteousness of God.” Acts ii, 40, ‘‘cwSy7e, Be ye saved, or save yourselves.” 
Eph. v, 22, ‘‘ Wives, vroraccecOc, be subject or. submit yourselves to your own 
husbands.” 1 Peter v, 6, ‘‘ raretvwSnre, Be humble, or humble yourselves.” James 
iv, 7, ‘‘ vroraynre, Be ye submissive,” or, as we have it in our Bibles, ‘submit 
yourselves to God,” &c, &c. I hope these examples will convince my readers, 
that, if our translators had shown themselves ‘‘ heretics,” and men unacquainted 
with “the Greek language,” supposing they had rendered our text, ‘‘ As many 
as (through grace) had disposed themselves, or were (inwardly) disposed for eter, 
nal life, believed,” they can hardly pass for orthodox or good Grecians now, 
since they have so often been guilty of the pretended error, which Mr. Leigh 
supposes peculiar to the ‘‘ dreaming heretics of our day.” 

(7.) All the Scriptures show that man and free will have their part to do in 
the work of salvation, as well as Christ and free grace. If this is denied, Mappeal 
to the multitude of passages which fill my second Scale; and J ask, Is it not 
strange, that a doctrine, supported by a variety of scriptures, should be called 
“heresy” by men that, ‘‘ as real Protestants,” profess to admit the Scriptures as 
the rule of their faith. I shall conclude this note by an appeal to the context. 

(8.) St. Paul having called the Jews to believe in Christ, bids them ‘‘ beware,” 
Acts xiii, 40, lest they should be found among the despisers that perish in their 
unbelief. Now how absurd would this caution have been, if a forcible decree of 
absolute election or reprobation had irreversibly ordained them to eternal life, or 
to eternal death! Would the apostle have betrayed more folly if he had bid them 
“beware” lest the sun should rise or set at its appointed time? Again, verse 
46, we are informed that these unbelievers ‘(judged themselves unworthy of 
eternal life,” and ‘‘ put the word” of God’s grace ‘‘ from them.” But if Mr. Ma- 
dan’s scheme were Scriptural, would not the historian have said, that God, from 
the foundation of the world, had absolutely “judged them unworthy of eternal 
life,” and therefore had never ‘‘ put” or sent to ‘‘ them” the word of his grace ? 
Once more: we are told, verse 45, that indulged envy, which the Jews were 
filled with, made them “ speak against those things which were spoken by Paul, 
that is, made thom disbelieve, and show their unbelief. Now is it not highly 
reasonable to understand the words of the text thus, according to that part of the 
context : ‘‘ As many as” did not obstinately harbour envy, prejudice, love of hon 


80 EQUAL 


I. 

Can the Ethiopian change his 
skin, and the leopard his spots? then 
may ye also do good [without my 
gracious help] that are accustomed 
to do evil, Jer. xiii, 23. 


Neither knoweth any man the 
Father, save, &c, he to whomsoever 
the Son will reveal him; [and he 
will reveal him unto babes, as 
appears from the context,] Matt. 
x1, 25, 27. Flesh and blood hath 
not revealed this unto thee, [that 
Jesus is the Christ, &c,] but my 
Father, Matt. xvi, 17. 


CHECK. [Part 


Hi. 

[It is very remarkable that the 
Lord, to show his readiness to help 
those obstinate offenders, says, just 
after] O Jerusalem, wilt thou not be 
made clean? When shall it once 
be? 

God resisteth the proud, but 
giveth grace to the humble; [i. e 
to babes,] &c. Submit therefore 
yourselves to God, &c, humble 
yourselves in the sight of the Lord, 
and he shall lift you up, James iv, 
6, &c. If any man will do his 
will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God, John vii, 17. 


The secret of the Lord is with them 
that fear him, Psa. xxv, 14. 


To understand aright some passages in St. John’s Gospel, we must 
remember that, wherever the Gospel of Christ is preached, the Father 
particularly draws to the Son as Redeemer, those that believe in him as 
Creator. And this he does, sometimes by cords of love, sometimes by 
cords of fear, and always by cords of conviction and humiliation. They 
that yield to these drawings become “ babes, poor in spirit,” and mem- 
bers of “the little flock” of humble souls, “to whom it is the Father’s 
good pleasure to give the kingdom. For he giveth grace to the num- 
BLE ;”—yea, “he giveth grace and glory, and no good thing will he 
withhold from them that” follow his drawings, and “lead a godly life.” 


our, or worldiy mindedness :—‘‘ As many as” did not ‘* put the word from them, 
.and judge themselves unworthy of eternal life, believed?” Nay, might we not 
properly explain the text thus, according to the doctrine of the talents, and the 
progressive dispensations of Divine grace, so frequently mentioned in the Scrip. 
tures: ‘‘ As many as believed In God, believed also” in Christ, whom Paul par- 
ticularly preached at that time;—as many as were humble and teachable, 
received the ingrafted word:” for ‘‘God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace 
to the humble. His secret is with them that fear him, and he will show them 
his covenant.” 

(9.) But what need is there of appealing to the context? Does not the text 
answer for itself, while Mr. Madan’s sense of it affords a sufficient antidote to all 
who dislike absurd consequences, and are afraid of traducing the Holy One of 
Israel? Let reason decide. If ‘‘as many as [were in Antioch] were [Calvinisti- 
cally] ordained to eternal life,” believed under that sermon of St. Paul, (for 
almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God,) it follows, that all 
who believed not “then,” were eternally shut up in unbelief; that all the elect 
believed at once ; that they who do not believe at one time shall never believe at 
another; and that when Paul returned to Antioch, few souls, if any, could be 
converted by his ministry; God having at once taken ‘‘as many as were ordained 
to eternal life,” and left all the rest to the devil. But, 

(10.) The most dreadful consequence is yet behind. If they that believed did 
it merely because they ‘t were absolutely ordained of God to eternal life,” it fol- 
lows, by a parity of reason, that those who disbelieved, did it merely because they 
were absolutely ordained of God to eternal death: God having bound them by the 
help of Adam in everlasting chains of unbelief and sin. Thus, while proud, 
wicked, stubborn unbelievers are entirely exculpated, the God of all mercies is 
indirectly charged with free wrath, and finished damnation. 

« 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 81 


Those convinced, humbled souls, gonscious of their lost estate, and 
inquiring the way to heaven, as honest Cornelius, and the trembling 
jailer—those souls, I say, the Father in a particular manner gives to the 
Son, as being prepared for him, and just ready to enter into his dispen- 
sation. “They believe in God, they must also believe in Christ ;” and 
the part of the Gospel that eminently suits them, is that which Paul 
preached to the penitent jailer ; and Peter to the devout centurion. 

The Jews about Capernaum showed great readiness to follow Jesus: 
put it was out of curiosity, and not out of hunger after righteousness. 
Their hearts went more after loaves and fishes, than after grace and 
glory. Ina word, they continued to be grossly unfaithful to their light, 
under the dispensation of the Father, or of God as Creator. Hence it 
is, that our Lord said to them, “ Labour not for the meat which perish- 
eth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life.” Mind your souls 
as well as your bodies: be no more practical Atheists. To vindicate 
- themselves they pretended to have a great desire to serve God. “ What 
shall we do,” said they, “that we may work the works of God?” “This 
is the work of God,” replied our Lord: “this is the thing which God” 
peculiarly requires of those who are under nts dispensation,—* that ye 
believe on him whom he hath sent,”—1. e. that ye submit to »y dispen- 
sation. Here the Jews began to cavil and say, “ What sign showest 
thou, that we may believe thee?” Our Lord, to give them to under- 
stand that they were not so ready to believe upon proper evidence as 
they professed to be, said to them, “ Ye have seen me” and my miracles, 
“and yet ye believe not.” Then comes the verse, on which Zelotes 
founds his doctrine of absolute grace to the elect, and of absolute wrath 
to all the rest of mankind: «All that the Father [particularly] giveth 
me,” because they are particularly convinced that they want a mediator 
between God and them ; and because they are obedient tg his drawings, 
and to the light of their dispensation ;—all these, says our Lord, “shall 
or will come unto me,” and I will be as ready to receive them, as the 
Father is to draw them to me, for “him that cometh to me, I will in no 
wise cast out :” I will admit him to the priwileges of my dispensation ; 
and, if he be faithful, I wii! even introduce him into the dispensation of 
the Holy Ghost,—into the kingdom, that does not consist in meat and 
drink, nor yet in bare penitential righteousness, but also in “ peace and 
joy i the Holy Ghost.” “And this is the Father’s will, that, of all 
whom he has given me,” that I may bless them with the blessings of my 
dispensation, “I should lose nothing” by my negligence as a Saviour, or 
as a Shepherd: although some will lose themselves by their own per- 
verseness and wilful apostasy. That this is our Lord’s meaning, is 
evident from his own doctrine about his disciples being “the salt of the 
earth,” and about some “losing their savour,” and “losing their own 
soul.” But above all, this appears from his express declaration con- 
cerning one of his apostles. This being premised, I balance the favour- 
ite text of Zelotes thus :— 

I. I. 

All that the Father giveth me[by I have manifested thy name [O 
the decree of faith, according to the Father] to the men whom thou hast 
order of the dispensations] shall [or given me out of the world. Thine 

Vor. I. 6 P ‘ 


$2 


pp ee)! Rud! shee r 
will] come to me; and him that 
cometh unto me I will in no wise 
cast out. [If he be lost it will not 
be by my losing him, but by his 
losing his own soul. It will not be 
by my casting him out, but by his 
casting himself out. Witness the 
young man, who thought our Lord’s 
terms too hard; and “went away 
sorrowful :” witness again Judas, 
who “went out,” and of his own 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 


Il. ‘ 
they were [they belonged to thy 
dispensation, they believed in thee] 
and thou gavest them me, [they en- 
tered my dispensation, and believed 
in me.] Those that thou gavest me, 
I have kept [according to the rules 
of my dispensation] and none of 
them is lost Bur [he that has de- 
stroyed himself, Judas,] the son of 
perdition, that the Scripture might be 
fulfilled, John xvii, 6, 12. 


accord “ drew back unto perdition.””] 
John vi, 37. 

Inquire we now what scriptures were fulfilled by the perdition of 
Judas. They are either general or particular: (1.) The general are’ 
such as these: “'The turning away of the simple shall slay them,” Proy. 
i, 32. “When the righteous man turneth from his righteousness, [and 
who can be a ‘righteous man’ without true faith ?] he shall die in his 
sin.” Again: “ When I say to the righteous,” that “he shall surely 
live, if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, he shall die for 
it,” Ezek. iii, 20; xxxui, 13. (2.) The particular scriptures fulfilled 
by the destruction of Judas are these: Psa. xli, 9, “ Mine own familiar 
friend in whom [ trusted, who did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel 
against me.” These words are expressly applied to Judas by our Lord 
himself, John xu, 18, and they demonstrate that Judas was not always a 
cursed hypocrite, unless Zelotes can make appear that our Lord reposed 
his trust in a hypocrite; whom he had chosen for his “own familiar 
friend.” Again: “Let his days be few, and let another take his office, 
or his bishopric.” These words are quoted from Psa. cix, and particu- 
larly applied to Judas by St. Peter, Acts i, 20. Now, to know whether 
Judas’ perdition was absolute, flowing from the unconditional reproba- 
tion of God, and not froth Judas’ foreseen backsliding, we need only 
compare the two Psalms where his sin and perdition are described. The 
one informs us, that before he lifted up his heel against Christ, he was 
Christ's own familiar friend, and so sincere that the Searcher of hearts 
trusted in him: and the other Psalm describes the cause of Judas’ per- 
sonal reprobation thus: “ Let his days be few, and let another take his 
office,” &c, “because that [though he once knew how to tread in the 
steps of the merciful Lord, who honoured him with a share in his fami- 
liar friendship, yet] he remembered not to show merey, but persecuted 
the poor, that he might even slay the broken in heart. As he loved 
cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let 
it be far from him: as he clothed himself with cursing like as with a 
garment, so let it come into his bowels like water,” Psa. cix, 8, 16, &c. 
Hence it is evident, that if Judas was lost agreeably to the Scriptural 
prediction of his perdition; and if that very prophecy informs us that 
“his days were few, because he remembered not to show mercy, &c,” 
we horribly wrong God when we suppose that this means, because God 
never remembered to show any mercy to Judas, because God was a 
_graceless God to Iscariot thousands of years before the infant culprit 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 83 


drew his first breath. Brethren and fathers, as many as are yet con- 
cerned for our Creator’s honour, and our Saviour’s reputation, resolutely 
bear your testimony with David and the Holy Ghost, against this doc- 
trine ; so shall Zelotes blush to charge still the Father of mercies with 
the absolute reprobation of Judas, not only in opposition to all good 
nature, truth, and equity ; but against as plain a declaration of God, as 
any that can be found in all the Scriptures. «Let his days be few, and 
let another take his office, &c, because he remembered not to show 
mercy, but persecuted the poor, that he might [betray innocent blood, 
and] even slay the broken in heart.”* 


* To say that God stood in need of Judas’ wickedness to deliver his Son to the 
Jews, is not less absurd than impious. ‘‘God has no need of the sinful man.” 
Any boy that had once heara our Lord preach in the temple, and seen him go to 
the garden of Gethsemane, might have given as proper an information to the 
high priest, and been as proper a guide to the mob, as Judas: especially as Christ 
was not less determined to deliver himself, than the Jews were to apprehend him. 
With regard to the notion that Judas was a wicked man—an absolute unheliever 
—a cursed hypocrite when our Lord gave him a place in his familiar friendship, 
and raised him to the dignity of an apostle, it is both unscriptural and scandalous. 
(1.) Unscriptural: for the Scripture informs us, that when the Lord immediately 
proceeds to an election of that nature, ‘‘he looketh on the heart,” 1 Sam. xvi, 7. 
Again: when the eleven apostles prayed that God would overrule the lot which 
they were about to cast for a proper person to succeed Judas, they said, ‘‘ Thou, 
Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which of these two thou hast 
chosen. that he might take part of the ministry, from which Judas by transgres- 
sion fell,” Acts i, 24. Now as Judas fell by transgression, he was undoubtedly 
raised by righteousness, unless Zelotes can make appear, that he rose the same 
way he fell; and, that as he fell by a bribe, so he gave some of our Lord’s friends 
a bribe, to get himself nominated to one of the twelve apostolic bishoprics: but 
even then, how does this agree with our Lord’s ‘‘ knowing the heart,” and choos- 
ing accordingly? (2.) This notion is scandalous: it sets Christ in the most con- 
temptible light. How will he condemn, in the great day, men of power in the 
Church, who for by-ends commit the care of souls to the most wicked of men? 
How will he even find fault with them, if he did set them the example himself, in 
passing by all the honest and good men in Judea, to go and set the apostolic mitre 
upon the head of a thief—of a ‘‘ wolf in sheep’s clothing?” In the name of wis- 
dom I ask, Could Christ do this, and yet remain’ the ‘good Shepherd?” How 
different is the account that St. Paul gives us of his own election to the apostle- 
ship. ‘The glorious Gospel of God was committed to my charge,” says he; 
‘and I thank Christ, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, put- 
ting me into the ministry,” 1 Tim. i, 11,12. Now, if we represent Christ as put- 
ting Paul into the ministry because he counted him faithful, and Judas because 
hé counted him unfaithful—a thief—a traitor—a cursed hypocrite, do we not 
make Christ a Proteus? Are his ways equal? Has he not two weights? God, 
I grant, sets sometimes a wicked king over a wicked people, but it is according 
to the ordinary course of human affairs, and in his anger; to chastise a sinful 
nation with a royal rod. But what had the unformed Christian Church done to 
deserve being scourged with the rod of apostolic wickedness? And what course 
of human affairs obliged our Lord to fix upon a wicked man in a new election to 
a new dignity—and, what is most striking, in an election to which he proceeded 
without the interposition of any free agent but himself? 

-O Zelotes, mistake me not: if I plead the cause of Judas’ sincerity, when he 
‘left all to follow Christ,” and when our Lord passed by thousands, immediately to 
choose him for his ‘‘ own familiar friend in whom he trusted ;”—for a preacher of his 
Gospel, and an apostle of his Church; I do not do it so much for Judas’ sake, as for 
the honour of Christ, and the comfort of his timorous, doubting followers. Alas! if 
Christ could show distinguishing favour and familiar friendship to aman, on whom 
he had absolutely set his black seal of unconditional reprobation—to a man whom, 
from the beginning of the world, he had without any provocation marked out for 

* 


84 EQUAL CHECK. {rar 
To conclude: if God has taken such particular care to clear himself 
from the charge of absolutely appointing Judas to be a “ son of perdition !” 
Nay, if Curisr himself asserts that the Farner gave him Judas, as well 
as the other apostles :—and if the Hoty Guosr declares, by the mouth 
of David, that Judas was once Christ’s familiar friend, and as such 
honoured with his trust and confidence; is it not evident, that the 
doctrine of free wrath, and of any man’s (even Judas’) absolute, uncon- 
ditional reprobation is as gross an imposition upon Bible Christians, as it 


is a foul blot upon all the Divine perfections? 


I. 

Ye believe not, because ye are 
not of my sheep, as I said unto 
you, [John vii, 37. He that is 
of God, heareth God’s words: ye 
therefore hear them not, because 
you are not of God—i. e. because 
ye are not godly, whatever ye pre- 
tend.| My sheep [those that really 
belong to my dispensation, and 
compose my little flock] my sheep, 
I say, hear my voice, [they mind, 
understand, approve, embrace my 
doctrine,| and they follow me [in 
the narrow way of faith and obe- 
dience :] and [in that way] I give 
unto them eternal life, and [in that 
way] they shall never perish, nei- 
ther shall any pluck them out of 
my hand. [For who shall harm 
them if they be followers of that 
which is good? 1 Peter ii, 13.] 
My Father who gave them me, 
[who agreed, that where my dis- 
pensation is opened, those who 
truly believe on him as Creator, 
should be peculiarly given me as 
head of the Christian Church, to 
make them Christian priests and 


_a goat, and for unavoidable damnation; 


Il. 

He that believeth not is condemn- 
ed already, because he hath not be- 
lieved, &c. And this is the [ground 
of unbelief and] condemnation, that 
light is come into the world, and 
men loved darkness rather than — 
light, because their deeds were evil. 
For every one that [buries his ta- 
lent of light, and] doeth evil, hateth 
the light, neither cometh to the 
light, /est his deeds should be re- 
proved. But he that doth truth 
[he that occupies till I come with 
more light] cometh to the light, 
that his deeds may be made mani- 
fest, that they are wrought in God, 
John ii, 18, &c. [All that our 
Lord meant, then, when he said to 
the Pharisees, “Ye believe not, be- 
cause ye are not of my sheep,” is 
explained in such scriptures as 
these.] He that is faithful in that 
which is least, is faithful also in 
much, Luke xvi, 10. How can ye 
believe, who receive honour one of 
another, and seek not the honour 
that cometh from God? [Had you 
been faithful to the light of con- 


if he could converse, eat, drink, travel, 


lodge, and pray for years with a man to whom he bore from everlasting, and will 
bear to all eternity, a settled ill will, an immortal hatred, where is sincerity? 
where is the Lamb without blemish? the Lamb of Godin whose mouth no guile 
was ever found? If Christ be such a sly damner of one of his twelve apostles as 
the ‘doctrines of grace” (so called) represent him to be, who can trust him ? 
What professor—what Gospei minister can assure himself that Christ has not 
chosen and called him for purposes as sinister as those for which it is supposed 
that Judas was chosen, and called to be Christ’s familiar friend? Nay, if Christ, 
barely on account of Adam’s sin, left Judas in the lurch, and even betrayed him 
into a deeper hell by a mock call, may he not have done the same by Zelotes, by 
me, and by all the professors in the world? O ye ‘doctrines of grace,” if you 
are as sweet as honey, in the mouth of Zelotes, as soon as I have eaten you, my 
belly is bitter ; poison corrodes my vitals; Imust either part with you, my reason, 
or my peace, 


SECOND.] 


I, 
kings unto him:] my Father, I say, 
who gave them me, 1s greater than 


all, and none shall pluck them [that 


thus hear my voice and follow me] 
out of my Father’s hand : for I and 
my Father are one [in nature, power, 
and faithfulness, to show that “the 
way of the Lord is strength to the 
upright ; but destruction shall be to 
the workers of iniquity,” Prov. x, 
29.] John x, 2, 26, &c. 

No man can come unto me ex- 
cept the Father draw him, [and he 
be faithful to the Father’s attrac- 
tion:] every man, therefore, that 
hath heard and learned of [that is, 
submitted to] the Father |and to his 
drawings] cometh unto me. There 
are some of you that believe not, 
&c. Therefore said I unto you, 
that no man can come unto me, ex- 
cept ut be given him of my Father, 
John vi, 44, 45, 64, 65. 

The meaning is, that no man can 
believe in the Son, who has not first 
a degree of true faith in the Father. 
“Ye believe in God, believe also 
in me,” says Christ. “All must 
honour the Son, as they honour the 
Father.” All, therefore, that do 
not “learn of,” that is, submit to, 
and honour the Father, cannot 
come to the Son and pay him hom. 
age. He that obstinately refuses 
to take the first step in the faith, 
cannot take the second. To show, 
therefore, that Zelotes cannot with 
propriety ground the doctrine of 
free wrath upon John vi, any more 
than upon John x, I need only prove 
the three propositions contained in 
the opposite Scale. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


85 
II. 


science, you would have believed 
Moses; and] had ye believed Mo- 
ses, ye would have believed me: 
but if ye believe not his writings, 
how shall ye believe my words? 
John y, 44, &c. [If ye believe not 
in God, how shall ye believe in me? 
If you dishonour my Father, how 
can you honour me 1] 


[First proposition. The Fa- 
ther draws all to himself, and gives 
to the Son all those who yield to his 
drawings. Witness the following 
scriptures.| Allthe day long I have © 
stretched forth my hand to [draw] 
a disobedient people, Rom. x, 21. 
Despisest thou the riches of God’s 
forbearance, not considering that his 
goodness leadeth [that is, gently 
draweth] thee to repentance, [and 
of consequence to faith in a Medi- 
ator between God and man?] Rom. 
li, 4. Of those whom thow hast 
given me none is lost [hitherto] but 
[one, Judas, who is already so com- 
pletely lost, that I may now call 
him] a son of perdition, John xvii, 
12. 

Seconp proposition. The Son 
likewise, “ who is the light that en- 
hghtens every man, draws all to 
himself,” and then brings to the Fa- 
ther those who yield to his attraction, 
“that they may receive the adop- 
tion of sons.” Witness the follow- 
ing scriptures :—“ And I, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto me, John xu, 32. 
Come unto me, all ye that labour 
[and are restless] and I will give 
you rest.” If you come to me, I 
will plainly reveal to you the Fa- 


ther : I will enable you by my peaceful Spirit to call him Anza, Faruer, 
with delightful assurance : [for] no man knoweth the Father but the Son, 
and he, to whomsoever the Son will reveal him [by the Holy Ghost,] 


Matt. xi, 27, 28. 
TurrD PROPOSITION. 


These drawings of the Father, and of the Son, 


are not irresistible, as appears from the following scriptures : “ Pecause 


86 EQUAL CHECK. [Parr 


I have stretched out my hands, and no man [comparatively] regarded 
[my drawings,] I will mock when your destruction cometh as a whirl- 
wind, Prov. i, 24, 27. These things I say unto you [obstinate Phari- 
sees,] that you might be [drawn unto me, and] saved, &c, and [notwith- 
standmg my drawings] ye will not come unto me, that ye might haye 
life,” John v, 34, 40. 

‘The preceding propositions are founded upon the proportion of faith, 
upon the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and upon the doc- 
trine of the dispensations explained in the Essay on Truth. 

Should Zelotes compare these propositions, he will see that if the 
Father does not particularly give all men to the Son, that they may 
receive the peculiar blessings of the Christian dispensation ; and if the 
Son does not explicitly reveal the Father to all men by the Spirit of 
adoption, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost ; it is not out of free, repro- 
bating wrath ; but merely for the two following reasons: (1.) Asin the 
political world all men are not called to be princes and kings; so in the 
religious world all are not blessed with five talents ; all are not called to 
believe explicitly in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, or to be “made 
kings and priests to God” in the Christian Church. (2.) Of the many 
that are called to this honour, few (comparatively) are obedient to the 
heavenly calling; and, therefore, “few are chosen” to “receive the 
crown of Christian righteousness :” or, as our Lord expresses it, few 
“are counted worthy to stand before the Son of man” among them that 
have been faithful to their five talents. But, as all men have one talent 
till they have buried it, and God has judicially taken it from them: as 
all men are at least under the dispensation of the Father, as a gracious 
and faithful Creator: as Christ, “the light that lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world,” draws all men implicitly to this merciful Crea- 
tor ; while the Spirit, as “the saving grace which has appeared unto all 
men, implicitly teaches them to deny ungodliness,” and to live soberly, 
righteously, and piously in this present world: as this is the case, I say, 
what can we think of the absolute election or reprobation of individuals, 
which insures saving grace and heaven to some, while (through the 
denial of every degree of saving grace) it secures damning sin and ever- 
lasting burnings to others ? 

If it be asked, how it has happened that so many divines have em- 
braced these tenets? I reply, It has been chiefly owing to their inat- 
tention to the doctrine of the dispensations. Being altogether talken up 
with the particular dispensations of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, 
they overlooked, as Peter once did, the general dispensation of the 
Father, which is the basis of all the superior economies of Divine grace. 
They paid no manner of attention to the noble testimony, which that 
apostle bore when, parting with his last scrap of Jewish bigotry, he said ; 
“Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in 
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted 
of him.” As if he had said, Though distinguishing grace should never 
give two talents to a heathen that fears God and works righteousness ; 
though he should never explicitly hear of the Son, andof the Holy 
Ghost ; yet shall he enter, as a faithful servant, into fhe joy of his 
merciful Lord, when many “children of the kingdom shall be thrust 
out :” for it is revealed upon earth, and of consequence it is decreed 


SECOND. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 87 


in heaven, that they who are chosen and called to partake of the Divine 
peace, which is essential to the peculiar dispensations of the Son, and 
of the unspeakable joy, which is essential to the peculiar dispensation 
of the Holy Ghost, shall be reprobated, or “ thrust out,” if they do not 
“make their high calling and election sure :” while they that were 
oniy chosen and called to the righteousness essential to the general 
dispensation of the Father, shall “receive the reward of the inherit- 
ance,” if they do but “walk worthy of their znferior election and cal}. 
ip? a 

“Methinks that Zelotes, instead of producing solid arguments in favour 
of his doctrines, complains that I bring certain strange things to his ears ; 
and that the distinction between the Christian dispensation, and the 
other economies of grace, by which I have solved his Calvinistic diff. 
culties, has absolutely no foundation in the Scripture. That I may 
convince him of his mistake in this respect, to what I have said on this 
subject in the Essay on Truth, I add the following proof of my deal. 
ing in old truths, and not in “novel chimeras.” St. Paul, 1 Cor. ix, 
17, declares that “the dispensation of the Gospel of Christ [which m 
its fulness takes in the ministration of the Spirit] was committed unto 
him.” Eph. i, 10, he*calls this dispensation “the dispensation of the 
fulness of times, in which God gathers in one all things in Christ.” 
Chap. iti, 2, &c, after mentioning “the dispensation of the grace of 
God given him,” as an apostle of Christ, he calls it “ preachmg among 
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,” and the “making all 
men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which had been hid in 
God from the beginning of the world.” Col. i, 25, &c, speaking of 
the Christian Church, in opposition to the Jewish, he says, “ Whereof 
I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is 
given to me for you, &c, even the mystery which hath been hid from 
ages, but now is made manifest to his saints :” and he informs them 
that this mystery, now revealed, was “Christ in them, the hope of 
glory.” Again, what he calls here the mystery hidden before, but now 
made manifest to Christians, he calls in another place “the new testa- 
ment,—the ministration of righteousness,—where the Spirit of the Lord 
is”’—and where “there is liberty,” even the glorious liberty of the chil- 
dren of God; observing, that although the Mosaic dispensation or “ mi- 
nistration” was “glorious,” yet that of Christ exceeds in glory,” 2 Cor. 
iil, 6, &c. 

To deny the doctrine of the dispensations is to deny that God made 
various covenants with the children of men since the fall: it is at least 
to confound all those covenants with which the various Gospel dispensa- 
tions stand or fall. And to do so is not to divide the word of God aright, 
but to make a doctrinal farrago, and increase the confusion that, reigns 
in mystical Babel. From the preceding quotations out of St. Paul’s 
Epistles, it follows, therefore, either that there was no Gospel in the world, 
before the Gospel which was “hid from ages,” and “made manifest” in 
St. Paul’s days “to God’s saints,” when this mystery, “ Christ in them 
the hope of glory,” was revealed to them by the Holy Ghost: or, (which 
to me appears*an indubitable truth,) that the evangelical dispensation of 
Adam and Noah was bright; that of Abraham and Moses brighter ; that 
of initial Christianity, or of John the Baptist, explicitly setting forth 


88 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 
“the Lamb ot God that taxeth away the sins of the world,” brighter 
still; and that of perfect Christianity, (or of Christ revealed in us by 


the power of the Holy Ghost,) the brightest of all. 


SECTION XI. 


A ratwnal and Scriptural view of St. Paul’s meaning in the ninth 
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans—Some of the deepest passages 
of that chapter are thrown into the Scripture Scales, and by being 
weighed with parallel teats, appear to have nothing to do with free 
wrath and Calvinistic reprobation. . 


Ir Zelotes find himself pressed by the weights of my second Scale, he 
will probably try to screen his “doctrines of grace,” by retreating with 
them behind the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. But lam 
beforehand with him: and appealing to that chapter, I beg leave to show 
that the passages in it, which at first sight seem to favour the doctrine 
of free wrath, are subversive of it, when they are candidly explained 


according to the context, and the rest of the scriptures. 
leading propositions open the section. 
I 


I. To deny that God out of mere 
distinguishing grace, may and does 
grant Church blessings, or the bless- 
ings of the covenant of peculiarity, 
to some men, making them com- 
paratively vessels to honour ; and 
making of consequence other men 
comparatively vessels to dishonour, 
or vessels Jess honourable: to deny 
this, I say, is to oppose the doctrine 
of the dispensations, and to rob God 
of a gracious. sovereignty, which 
he justly claims. 

Il. God is too gracious uncondi- 
_ tionally to reprobate, i. e. ordain to 
eternal death, any of his creatures. 

Ill. In the day of initial salva- 
tion, they who through grace believe 
in their light, are condztionally ves- 
sels of mercy, or God’s elect, ac- 
cording to one or another dispensa- 
tion of his grace. 

IV. God justly gives up to final 
blindness of mind, and complete 
hardness of heart, them that reso- 
lutely shut their eyes, and harden 
their hearts to the end of their day 
of initial salvation. 


Five couple of 


Il. 

To insinuate that God, out of 
mere distinguishing wrath, fixes the 
curse of absolute rejection upon a 
number of unborn men, for whom 
he never had any mercy, and whom 
he designs to call into being only to 
show that he can make and break 
vessels of wrath—to insinuate this, 
I say, is to attribute to God a@ tyran- 
nical sovereignty, which he justly 
abhors. 


God is too holy and too just not 
to reprobate his obstinately rebel- 
lious creatures. 

In the day of initial salvation, 
they who unnecessarily do despite 
to the Spirit of grace and disbelieve, 
are conditionally vessels of wrath, 
that “ fit themselves for destruction.” 

Perverse free will in us, and not 
free wrath in God, or necessity from 
Adam, is the cause of our avoidable 
unbelief: and our personal avoidable 
unbelief is the cause of our complete 
personal reprobation, both at the end 
of the day of grace, and in the day 
of judgment. 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 89 


I. ; Il. 

V. There can be no sovereign, | There can never be sovereign, 
distinguishing free grace in a good distinguishing free wrath in a just 
God ; because goodness can bestow . God ; because justice cannot inflict 
free, undeserved gifts. free, undeserved punishments. 

Reason and conscience should alone, one would think, convince us 
that St. Paul, in Rom. ix, does not plead for a right in God so to hate 
any of his unformed creatures as to intend, make, and fit them for 
destruetion, merely to show his absolute sovereignty and irresistible 
power. ‘The apostle knew too well the God of love, to represent him as 
a mighty potter, who takes an unaccountable pleasure to form rational 
vessels, and to endue them with keen sensibility, only to have the glory 
of absolutely filling them, by the help of Adam, with sin and wickedness 
on earth, and then with fire and brimstone in hell. This is the conceit 
of the consistent admirers of unconditional election and rejection, who 
build it chiefly upon Rom. ix. Should you ask, why they fix so dread- 
ful a meaning on that portion of Scripture; I answer, that through in- 
attention and prejudice, they overlook the two keys which the apostle 
gives us to open his meaning, one of which we find in the three first, 
and the other in the three last verses of that perverted chapter. 

In the three first verses St. Paul expresses the “continual sor- 
row,” which he “had in his heart,” for the obstinacy of his country- 
men, the Jews, who so depended upon their national prerogatives, as 
Jews; their Church privileges, as children of Abraham; and their 
Pharisaic righteousness of the law, as observers of the Mosaic ceremo- 
nies, that they detested the doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. 
Now, if the apostle had believed that God, by a wise decree of preteri- 
tion, had irreversibly ordained them to eternal death “to illustrate his 
glory by their damnation,” as Calvin says; how ridiculous would it 
have been in him to sorrow night and day about the execution of 
God’s wise design! If God, from the beginning of the world, had 
absolutely determined to make the unbelieving Jews personally and 
absolutely vessels of wrath, to the praise of the glory of his sovereign 
free wrath ; how wicked would it have been in St. Paul to begin the 
next chapter by saying, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for 
unbelieving Israel—for the obstinate Jews, is that they might be saved !” 
Would he not rather have meekly submitted to the will of God, and said, 
like Eli, “It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good?’ Did 
it become him—nay, was it not next to rebellion in him, so passionately 
to set his heart against a decree made (as we are told) on purpose to 
display the absoluteness of Divine sovereignty? And would not the 
Jews have retorted his own words! “ Who art thou, O vain man, that 
repliest against God” by wishing night and day the salvation of “ vessels 
of wrath :” of men whom he hath absolutely set apart for destruction ? 

“But if the apostle did not intend to establish the absolute, personal 
preterition of the rejected Jews and their fellow reprobates, what could 
he mean by that mysterious chapter?” I reply: He meant in general 
to vindicate God’s conduct in casting off the Jews, and adopting the 
Gentiles. Tris deserves some explanation. When St. Paul insinuated 
to the Jews that they were rejected as a Church and people, and that 
the uncircumcised Gentiles (even as many as believed on Jesus of 


90 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


Nazareth) were now the chosen nation, “the peculiar people,” and 
Church of God, his countrymen were greatly offended: and yet, as 
“the apostle of the Gentiles,” to “provoke the Jews to jealousy,” he 
was obliged peculiarly to enforce this doctrine among them. They 
generally gave him audience till he touched upon it. But when he 
“waxed bold,” and told them plainly that Christ had bid him “ depart 
from Jerusalem,” as from an accursed city ; and had “ sent him far thence 
unto the Gentiles,” they could contain themselves no longer ; and “ lift. 
ing up their voices, they said, Away with such a fellow from the. earth,” 
Acts xiti, 46; xxii, 21.* : 

When St. Paul wrote to Rome, the metropolis of the Gentile world, 
where there were g great many Jews, the Holy Ghost directed him to 
clear up the question concerning the general election of the Gentiles, 
and the general rejection of the Jews. And this he did, both for the 
comfort of the humble, Gentile believers, and for the humiliation of his 
proud, self-elected countrymen ; that being provoked to jealousy, they, 
or at least some of them, might with the Gentiles make their personal 
calling and election sure by believing in Christ. As the Jews were gene- 
rally incensed against him, and he had a most disagreeable truth to write, 
he dips his pen in the oil of brotherly love, and begins the chapter by a 
most awful protestation of his tender attachment to them, and sorrowful 
concern for their salvation, hoping that this would soften them, and 
reconcile their prejudiced minds. But if he had répresented them as 
absolute reprobates, and vessels of wrath irreversibly ordained of God 
to destruction, he would absurdly have defeated his own design, and 
exasperated them more than ever against his doctrine and his person. 
To suppose that he told them with one breath, he wished to be accursed 
from Christ for them, and with the next breath insinuated that God had 
absolutely accursed them with unconditional, personal reprobation, is a 
notion so excessively big with absurdity, that at times Zelotes himself can 
scarcely swallow it down. Who indeed can believe that St. Paul made 
himself so ridiculous as to weep tears of the most ardent loye over the 
free wrath of his reprobating Creator? Who can imagine that the pious 
apostle painted out “the God of all grace,” as a God full of immortal 
hatred to most of his countrymen: while he represented himself as a 
person continually racked with the tenderest feelings of a matchless 
affection for them all; thus impiously raising his own reputation, as a 
benevolent man, upon the ruins of the reputation of his malevolent 
God? 

Come we now to the middle part of the chapter. St. Paul, having 


* It is remarkable that Jewish rage first broke out against our Lord, when 
he touched their great Diana—the doctrine of their absolute election. You 
think, said he, to be saved, merely because you are Abraham’s children, and 
God’s chosen, peculiar people. ‘“ But I tell you of a truth,” God is not so partial 
to Israel as you suppose. ‘‘ Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, but 
to none of them was Elias sent, but to a Zidonian [heathen] widow. And many 
lepers were in Israel in the days Elisha, yet none of them was cleansed save 
Naaman the Syrian,” Luke iv, 25, &c. The Jews never forgave our Lord that 
levelling saying. If he narrowly escaped their fury at Nazareth, it was only to 
meet it increased sevenfold in the holy city. So fierce and implacable are 
the tempers to which some professors work up themselves, by drinking into un- 
scriptural notions of election ! 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURS SCALES. 91 


prepared the Jews for the disagreeable niessage which he was about to 
deliver, begins to attack their Pharisaic prejudices concerning their 
absolute right, as children of Abraham, to be God’s Church and people, 
exclusively of the rest of the world whom they looked upon as reprobated 
dogs of the Gentiles. To drive the unbelieving Jews out of this shelter- 
ing place, he indirectly advances two doctrines: (1.) That God, as the 
Creator and supreme Benefactor of men, may do what he pleases with 
his peculiar favours; and that as he had now as indubitable a right 
freely to give five talents of Church privileges to the Gentiles, as he 
had once to bestow three talents of Church privileges upon the Jews. 
And, (2.) That God had as much right to set the seal of his wrath upon them, 
as upon Pharaoh himself, if they continued to imitate the inflexibleness 
of that proud unbeliever ; inexorable unbelief being the sin that fits men 
for destruction, and pulls down the wrath of Ged upon the children of 
disobedience. 

The first of those doctrines he proves by a reasonable appeal to con- 
science: (1.) Concerning the absurdity of replying against God, i. e. 
against a being of infinite wisdom, goodness, justice, and power. And 
(2.) Concerning a right which a potter has of the same “lump of clay” 
to make one vessel for* honourable, and another for comparatively dis. 
honourable uses. The argument carries conviction along with it. 
Were utensils capable of thought, the basin, in which our Lord washed 
his disciples’ feet, (a comparatively dishonourable use,) could never rea- 
sonably complain that the potter had not made it the cup in which 
Christ consecrated the sacramental wine. By a parity of reason, the 
king’s soldiers and servants cannot justly be dissatisfied because he has 
not made them all generals and prime ministers. And what reason 
had the Jews to complain, that God put the Gentiles on a level with, 
or even above them? May he not, without being arraigned at the bar 
of slothful servants, who have buried their talents, give a peculiar, 
extraordinary blessing when he pleases, and to whom he pleases? 
«Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made 
me thus?” Shall the foot say, Why am I not the head? and the knee, 
Why am [ not the shoulder? Or, to allude to the parable of the labour- 
ers, “if God chooses to hire the Gentiles, and send them into his 
favourite vineyard, blessing them with Church privileges as he did the 
Jews; shall the eye of the Jews “be evil because God is good” to 
these newly hired labourers? “ May he not do what he pleases with 
his own ?” 

* TI have lived these fifteen years in a part of England where a multitude of 
potters make.all manner of iron and earthen vessels. Some of these mechanics 
are by no means conspicuous for good sense, and others are at times besotted 
through excessive drinking; but I never yet saw or heard of one so excessively 
foolish as to make, even in a drunken fit, a vessel on purpose to break it, to show 
that he had power over the work of his own hands. Such, however, is the folly 
that Zelotes’ scheme imputes to God. Nay, if a potter makes vessels on pur- 
pose to break them, he is only a fool; but if he could make sensible vessels like 
dogs, and formed them on purpose to roast them alive, and that he might show 
his sovereign power, would you not execrate his cruelty as much as you would 
pity his madness? But, what would you think of the man if he made five or ten 
such vessels for absolute destruction, while he made one for absolute salvation, 


and then assumed the title of gracious and merciful potter, and called his potting 
schemes ‘‘ schemes of grace ?” 


92 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


To this rational argument St. Paul adds another (ad hominem) 
peculiarly adapted to the Jews, who supposed it a kind of sacrilege to 
deny that, as children of Abraham, they were absolutely “ the chosen 
nation,” and “the temple of the Lord.” To convince them that God 
was not so partial to the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as 
they imagined, the apostle reminds them that God had excluded the 
first born of those favoured patriarchs from the peculiar blessings which 
by birthright belonged to them: doing it sometimes on account of the 
sin of those first born, and sometimes previously to any personal demerit 
of theirs, that he might show that his purpose, according to election to 
peculiar privileges and Church prerogatives, does “not stand of works, 
but of him that” chooseth, and “calleth” of his sovereign, distinguish- 
ing grace. St. Paul confirms this part of his doctrine by the instance 
of Ishmael and Isaac, who were both sons of Abraham: God haying 
preferred Isaac to Ishmael, because Isaac was the child of his own pro- 
mise, and of Abraham’s faith by Sarah, a free woman, who was a type 
of grace and the Gospel of Christ : whereas Ishmael was only the child 
of Abraham’s natural strength by Agar, an Egyptian bondswoman, 
who was a type of nature and the Mosaic dispensation. 

With peculiar wisdom the apostle dwells upon the still more striking 
instance of Isaac’s sons, Esau and Jacob, who had not only the same 
godly father, but the same free and pious mother; the younger of 
whom was nevertheless preferred to the elder without any apparent 
reason. He leaves the Jews to think how much more this might be 
the case, when there is an apparent cause, as in the case of Reuben, 
Simeon, and Levi, Jacob’s three eldest sons, who, through incest, 
treachery, and murder, forfeited the blessing of the first born ; a bless- 
ing this which by that forfeiture devolved on Judah, Jacob’s fourth 
son, whose tribe became the first and most powerful of all the tribes 
of Israel, and had of consequence the honour of producing the Mes- 
siah, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” St. Paul’s argument is mas- 
terly, and runs thus :—If God has again and again excluded some of 
Abraham’s posterity from the blessing of the peculiar covenant, which 
he made with that patriarch concerning the “ promised seed :”—if he 
said, “In Isaac,” Jacob, and Judah, “shall thy seed [the Messiah] be 
called,” and not in Ishmael, Esau, and Reuben, the first born sons of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; how absurd is it in the Jews to suppose 
that merely because they are descended from Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, they shall absolutely share the blessings of the Messiah’s 
kingdom? If God excluded from the birthright Ishmael the scoffer, 
Esau the seller of his birthright, and Reuben the defiler of Bilhah, 
his father’s wife; why might not Israel (his son called out of Egypt) 
his first born among nations, forfeit his birthright through unbelief? 
And why should not the Gentile world, God’s prodigal son, inherit the 
blessing of the first born, if they submitted to the obedience of faith, 
and with the younger son in the parable, returned from “the .far 
country” to their father’s house; while the elder son insolently quar- 
reled with God, reproached his brother, absolutely refused to come in, 
and thus made his calling void, and his reprobation sure? 

‘he apostle’s argument is like a two-edged sword. With one edge 
he cuts down the bigotry of the Jews, by the above-mentioned appeals 


> 


SECOND. | SCRIPTURE SCALES. 93 


to the history of their forefathers ; and with the other edge he strikes 
at their unbelief, by an appeal to the destruction of Pharaoh ; insinu- 
ating that God as Maker, Preserver, and Governor of men, has an 
undoubted right to fix the gracious or righteous terms, on which he 
will finally bestow salvation ; or inflict damnation on his rational crea- 
tures. 

With the greatest propriety St. Paul brings in Pharaoh, to illustrate 
the odious nature, fatal consequences, and dreadful punishment of 
unbelief. No example was better known, or could be more striking to 
the Jews. They had been taught from their infancy, with how 
“much long suffering” God had “ endured” that notorious unbeliever ; 
“raising him up,” supporting him, and bearing with his insolence day 
after day, even after he had fitted himself for destruction. ‘They had 
been informed, that the Lord had often reprieved that father of the 
faithless, that, in case he again and again hardened himself, (as 
Omniscience saw he would do,) he might be again and again scourged, 
till the madness of his infidelity should drive him into the very jaws of 
destruction; God having on purpose spared him, yea,* “raised him 
up” after every plague, that if he refused to yield, he might be made a 
more conspicuous monument of Divine vengeance, and be more glori- 
ously overthrown by matchless power. So should “God’s name,” i. e. 
his adorable perfections, and righteous proceedings, “be declared 
throughout all the earth.” And so should unbelief appear to all the 
world in its own odious and infernal colours. 

St. Paul having thus indirectly, and with his usual prudence and 
brevity, given a double stab to the bigotry of the unbelieving Jews, who 
fancied themselves unconditionally elected, and whom he had repre- 
sented as conditionally reprobated ; lest they should mistake his mean- 
ing as Zeloies does, he concludes the chapter thus: “ What shall we 
say then?” What is the inference which I draw from the preceding 
arguments? One which is obvious, namely, this: “That the Gentiles, 
[typified by Jacob the younger brother,] who followed not professedly 
after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the Christian 
righteousness which is of faith. But Israel,” or the Jews, who profes- 
sedly “followed after the law of Mosaic righteousness, [as the sports- 
man Esau did after his game,] have not attained to the law of Mosaic 
or Christian righteousness :” they are neither justified as Jews, nor 
sanctified as Christians. “True; and the reason is, because God had 
absolutely passed them by from all eternity, that he might in time 
make them vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.” So insinuates 
Zelotes. But happily for the honour of the Gospel, St. Paul declares 
just the reverse. “ Wherefore,” says he, did not the reprobated Jews 


*Is it not strange that Zelotes should infer, from this expression, that God had 
originally ‘raised up,” that is, created Pharaoh, on purpose to damn him? Is it 
not evident that Pharaoh justly looked upon every plague as a death? Witness 
his own words, “‘Intreat the Lord your God that he may take away from me 
this death only,” Exod. x, 17. And if every plague was a death to Pharaoh, was 
not every removal of a plague a kind of resurrection, a ruising him up, together 
with his kingdom, from a state of destruction, according to these words of the 
Egyptians, ‘‘ Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?” How reasonable 
and Scriptural is this sense! Huw dreadful, I had almost said, how diaholical is 
that of Zelotes ! 


94 EQUAL CHECK. : [part 


attain to righteousness? ‘fo open the eyes of Zelotes, if any thing 
will, he answers his own question thus: “ Because they sought it not 
by faith, but as it were by the external works’ of the Mosaic law” - 
opposed to Christian faith. “For they stumbled at that stumbling 
stone,” Christ, who is “a rock of offence” to unbelievers, and “the 
rock of ages” to believers. “As it is written, Behold I lay in Zion a 
rock,” that some shall, through their obstinate unbelief, make “a rock 
of offence.” And others, through their humble faith, a rocky founda- 
tion, according to the decrees of conditional reprobation and election : 
«“ He that believeth not shall be damned,—and whosoever believeth on 
him shall not be ashamed,” Rom. ix, 1-33; Mark xvi, 16. 

That Zelotes should mistake the apostle’s meaning when it is so 
clearly fixed in the latter part of the chapter is unaccountable: but that 
he should support by it his peculiar notion of absolute reprobation is 
really astonishing. The unbelieving Jews are undoubtedly the persons 
whom the apostle had first in view when he asserted God’s night of 
appointing that obstinate unbelievers shall be “ vessels of wrath.” But 
hear what he said of those REPROBATED JEws to the ELECTED Gentiles, 
in the very next chapter but one. “I speak to van Gentiles, &c, if by 
any means I may provoke to emulation them that are my flesh [the 
Jews] and might save some of them. If some of the branches [the 
unbelieving Jew s] be broken off, &c, because of unbelief they were 
broken off, and thou [believing Gentile] standest by faith. Be not high 
minded but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take 
heed lest he also spare not thee, &c. Continue in his goodness, other- 
wise thou also shalt be cut off,’ and treated as a vessel of wrath. “And 
they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in,” and 
treated as vessels of mercy, Rom. xi, 13, &c. 

But what need is there of going to Rom. xi to show the inconsistency 
of the Calvinistic doctrines of free grace in Christ and free wrath in 
Adam? Of everlasting love to some and everlasting hate to others? 
Does not Rom. ix itself afford us another powerful antidote? If the 
elect were from eternity God’s beloved people, while the non-elect were 
the devil’s people, hated of their Maker: and if God’s love and hatred 
are equally unchangeable, whether free agents change from holiness to 
sin, or from sin to holiness; what shall we make of these words? “TI 
will call them my people which were not my people; and her beloved 
which was not beloved. And where it was said unto them, Ye are not 
my people : there [upon their believing] shall they be called the children 
of God,” Rom. ix, 25, 26. What a golden key is here to open our 
doctrine of conditional election, and to shut Zelotes’ doctrine of absolute 
reprobation ! ° 

Having thus given a general view of what appears to me from con- 
science, reason, Scripture, and the context, to be St. Paul’s meaning in 
that deep chapter ; I present the reader with a particular and Scriptural 
explanation of some passages in it which do not puzzle Honestus a little, 
and by which Zelotes supports the doctrines of bound will and fibe 
wrath with some plausibility. 

II. 

It is not [primarily] of him that Ye will not come to me 9 

willeth, [i God’s way,] nor is it might have life, John y, 40. 0 


’ 


SECOND. ] 


I. 
[at all] of him that willeth [in oppo- 
sition to God’s will, as the self- 
righteous Jews did, ] Romans ix, 16. 


It is not [primarily] of him that 
runneth, but* of God that showeth 
mercy, Romans ix, 16. 


[EXsn¢w] I will have mercy on 
whom I will [or rather cAsw I should] 
have mercy, Romans ix, 15. 


|Ovcraipytw] I will have com- 
passion on whom I will [or rather 
aixréips) I should] have compassion, 
Romans ix, 15. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


95 


Il. 
soever will, let him come, Revela- 
tion xxii, 17. I have set before 


‘you life and death, &c, choose, 


Deut. xxx, 19. I would, &c, and 
ye would not, Luke xi, 34. 

I went, &c, lest by any means I 
should run or had. run in vain, 
Gal. ii, 2. So run that [through 
mercy] you may obtain, 1 Corinth- 
ians ix, 24. 

Whoso forsaketh his sin shall 
have mercy, Proverbs xxviii, 13. 
Let the wicked forsake his way, 
and, &c, the Lord will have mercy 
upon him, Isaiah lv, 7. He shall 
have judgment without mercy, that 
hath showed no mercy, James ii, 
13. All the paths of the Lord are 
mercy to such as keep his covenant, 
Psalm xxy, 10. 

As the heaven is high above the 
earth; so great is his mercy toward 
them that fear him, Psalm ciii, 11. 
The things that belong unto thy 


peace are hid from thine eyes, &c, 
because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation, Luke xix, 44. How 
is it that ye do not discern this time, yea, and why even of yourselves 
judge ye not what is nght? Luke xii, 56,57. Hear, O heavens, &c, 
I have nourished children, and they have rebelled against me. ‘The ox 
knoweth his owner, &c, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not 
consider. It is a people of no understanding ; therefore he that formed 
them will show them no favour, Isa. i, 3; xxvii, 11. And God said to 
Solomon, Because thou hast asked for thyself understanding, &c, lo, I 
have given thee a wise and understanding heart, 1 Kings iii, 11, 12. 
Because he considereth, &c, he shall not die,—he shall surely live, 
Ezek. xvii, 28. [Who can help seeing through this cloud of scriptures, 
that “God has mercy on whom he should have mercy,” according to 
his Divine attributes ; extending initial mercy to all, according to his 
long suffering and impartiality; and showing eternal mercy, according 


* In familiar and Scripture language the effect is frequently ascribed to the 
chief cause; while, for brevity’s sake, inferior causes or agents are passed over 
in silence. Thus David says, ‘‘ Except the Lord build the house, their labour 
is but vain that build it.” St. Paul says, “‘I laboured, yet not I, but the grace 
of God.” And we say, ‘“ Admiral Hawke has beat the French fleet.” Would it 
not be absurd in Zelotes to strain these expressions so as to make absolutely 
nothing of the mason’s work in the building of a house; of the apostle’s preach- 
ing in the conversion of those Gentiles; and of the bravery of the officers and 
sailors in the victory got over the French by the English admiral? It is never- 
theless upon such frivolous conclusions as these that Zelotes generally rests the 
enormous weight of Ais peculiar doctrines. 


96 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 


to his holiness and truth, to them that use and improve their talent of 
understanding, so as to love him and keep his commandments ?] 


The children being not yet born, 
neither having done any good or 
evil, that the purpose of God ac- 
cording to election might stand not 
of works, but of him that calleth 
[i. e. that God might show, he may 
and will choose some of Abraham’s 
posterity to some peculiar privi- 
leges which he does not confer upon 
others: and likewise to teach us 
that grace and the new man mysti- 
cally typified by Jacob, shall have 
the reward of the inheritance,—a 
reward this, which fallen nature and 
the old man, mystically typified by 
Esau, shall never receive : to teach 
us this] it was said to Rebecca, 
The elder shall serve the younger 


Thus saith the Lord,—Did I 
plainly appear to the house of thy 
father, &c, and did I choose him 
out of all the tribes of Israel to be 
my priest, &c. Why kick ye at 
my sacrifice? Wherefore the Lord 
God saith, I said indeed that thy 
house should walk before me for 
ever. But now the Lord saith, Be 
it far from me; for them that 
honour me [ will honour; and the 
that despise me shall be lightly 
esteemed, 1 Samuel 1, 27, &c. 
Again: the Lord said to Samuel, 
[I have not chosen,] I have refused 
him [Eliab] for the Lord seeth not 
as man seeth: the Lord looketh at 
the heart [and chooseth in conse- 


[in his posterity* though not in his quence : accordingly, when] “Jesse 

* Mr. Henry says with great truth, ‘‘ All this choosing” of Jacob and refusing 
of Esau ‘‘was typical, and intended to shadow forth some other election and 
rejection.” And although he was a Calvinist, he does, in many respects, justice 
to St. Paul’s meaning. ‘This difference,” says he, ‘‘that was put between Jacob 
and Esau, he [the apostle] farther illustrates by a quotation from Mal. i, 2, where 
it is said, not of Jacob and Esau the persons, but the Edomites and Israelites 
their posterity: ‘Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.’ The people of 
Israel were taken into the covenant of peculiarity, had the land of Canaan given 
them, were blessed with the more signal appearances of God for them in special 
protection, supplies; and deliverances, while the Edomites were rejected, [from 
the covenant of peculiarity,] had no temple, altars, priests, prophets; no such 
particular care of them, &c. Others understand it of the election and rejection 
of particular persons; some loved and others hated from eternity. But the apostle 
speaks of Jacob and Esau, not in their own persons, but as ancestors: Jacob the 
people and Esau the people: nor doth God damn any, or decree so to do, merely 
because he will do it, without any reason taken from their own deserts, &c. The 
choosing of Jacob the younger was to intimate that the Jews, though the natural 
seed of Abraham, and the first born of the Church, should be laid aside: and the 
Gentiles, who were as the younger brother, should be taken in in their stead, and 
have the birthright and blessing.” He concludes his comment upon the whole 
chapter by these words, which exactly answer to the double key I have given to the 
reader: ‘‘ Upon the whole matter the unbelieving Jews have no re2son to quarrel 
with God for rejecting them: they had a fair offer of righteousness and life, 
and salvation, made upon Gospel terms, which they did not like, and would not 
come up to; and therefore if they perish they may thank themselves. Their blood 
is upon their own heads.” 

What precedes is pure truth, and strongly confirms my doctrine. But what fol 
lows is pure Calvinism, and shows the inconsistency of the most judicious writers 
in that scheme. ‘‘ Were the Jews hardened? It was because it was his own 
(God’s) pleasure to deny them softening grace, &c. Two sorts of vessels God 
forms out of the great lump of fallen mankind: (1.) ‘ Vessels of wrath: vessels 
filled with wrath, as a vessel of wine isa vessel filled with wine, ‘full of the fury 
of the Lord,’ &c. (2.) ‘Vessels of mercy,’ filled with merey.” And again: “he 
(the apostle) answers by resolving all into the Divine sovereignty. We are the 


SECOND.] 


I. 
person :] that is, the younger shall 
have the blessing of the first born. 
And it was accordingly conferred 
upon Jacob in these words, Be 
lord over thy brethren, Gen. xxvii, 
29. To conclude, therefore, from 
Jacob’s superior blessing, that Esau 
was absolutely cursed and repro- 
bated of God, is as absurd as to 
suppose that Manasseh, Joseph’s 
eldest son, was also an absolute 
reprobate, because Ephraim, his 
younger brother, had Jacob’s chief 


blessing: for the old patriarch re-’ 


fusing to put his right hand upon 
the head of Manasseh, said, “ Truly 
his younger brother shall be greater 
than he,” Genesis xlviii, 19. But 
would Zelotes himself infer from 
such words that Manasseh was 
personally appointed from all eter- 
nity to disbelieve and be damned, 
and Ephraim to believe and be 
saved; that the purpose of God 
according to absolute reprobation 
and election might stand “not of 
works* but of him that capriciously 
and irresistibly calleth” some to fin- 
ished salvation in Christ, and others 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


97 
II. 


made seven of his sons to pass be- 
fore the Lord, Samuel said, The 


‘Lord hath not chosen these, 1 Sam. 


xvi, 7, 10. The Lord hath sought 
him a man after hig own heart, 
[David,] because thou [Saul] hast 
not kept that which the Lord com- 
manded thee. Once more: the 
Lord has rent the kingdom of Israel 
from thee this day, and hath given 
it to a neighbour of thine that is 
better than thou,” chap. xiii, 14; 
xv, 28. 

The kingdom of Israel was an 
unpromised gift to Saul and to 
David, and yet God’s election to 
and reprobation from that dignity 
were according to dispositions and 
works. How much more may this 
be said of God’s election to or re- 
probation from a crown of glory! 
a crown this, which God hath pro- 
mised by way of reward to them 
that love him; refusing it by way 
of punishment to them that hate 
him; whom he clothes in hell with 
shame and with a vengeful curse, 
according to their works and his 
own declaration which follows :— 


thing formed, and he is the former, and it does not become us to challenge or 
arraign his wisdom in ordering and disposing of us into this or that shape or 
figure.” That is, in plain English, free wrath, or, to speak smoothly as a Calvin- 
ist, Divine sovereignty may order and dispose us into the shape of vessels of 
wrath before we have done either» good or evil. How could Mr. Henry thus con- 
tradict himself, and write for and against truth? Why, he was a moderate Calwvin- 
ist: as moderate, he wrote glorious truths; and, as a Calvinist, horrid insinua- 
tions. 

* This phrase: ‘‘ That the purpose of God according to election might stand 
not of works but of him that calleth,” is to be understood merely of those blessings 
which distinguishing grace bestows upon some men and not upon others, and 
which do not necessarily affect their eternal salvation or their eternal damnation. 
In this sense.it was that God, for the above-mentioned reasons, preferred Jacob. 
to Esau. In this sense he still prefers a Jew to a Hottentot, and a Christian to 
a Jew; giving a Christian the Old and New Testament, while the Jew has only 
the Old, and the Hottentot has neither. Far from denying the reality of this 
sovereign, distinguishing grace, which is independent on all works, and flows 
entirely from the superabounding kindness of “him that calleth,” I have parti 
cularly maintained it, vol. i, p. 505. ‘This is St. Paul’s edifying meaning, t , 
which I have not the least objection. But when Zelotes stretches the phrase so. 
far as to make it mean that God ordains people to eternal life or eternal death, 
“not of works but of him that” without reason forcibly ‘ calleth some to believe 
and be saved, leaving others necessarily to disbelieve and be damned: when 
Zelotes does this, I say, my reason and conscience are equally frighted, and I beg 
leave to dissent from him for the reasons mentioned in this section. 


Vou. II. 7 rae 


98 


to finished damnation in Adam? 
That God abhors such a proceed. 
ing is evident from the scriptures 
which fill my left scale, and in par- 
ticular from the opposite texts. 


It is written, Jacob have I loved, 
but Esau have I hated, Rom. ix, 
13. 

Zelotes, who catches at whatever 
seems to countenance his doctrine 
of free wrath, thinks that this serip- 
ture demonstrates the electing and 
reprobating partiality, on which his 
favourite doctrines are founded. To 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 


1% 
“Yet saith the [Predestinarian] 
house of Israel, The way of the 
Lord is not equal. O house of 
Israel, are not my ways equal? 
Are not your ways unequal? 
Therefore I will judge you every 
one according to his ways. Re- 
pent and turn, &c, so iniquity shall 
not be your ruin,” Ezekiel xviii, 
29, &c. “I will do unto them 
according to their way; and ac- 
cording to their deserts [secundum 
merita] will I judge them, and they 
shall know that I am the Lord,” 
Ezekiel vii, 27. To these scrip 
tures you may add all the multi- 
tude of texts where God declares 
that he will judge, i. e. justify or 
condemn, reward or punish, finally 
elect or finally reprobate men for, 
by, according to, or because of their 
works. 

God is love. God is loving to 
every man, and his tender mercies 
[in the accepted time] are over all 
his works. Yet the children of thy 
people say, The way of the Lord 
is not equal: but as for them, their 
way is not equal, &c, 1 John iv, 8: 
Psa. cxly, in the common prayers, 
Ezek. xxxiii, 17. 


see his mistake, we need only consider, that in the Scripture language a 
love of preference is emphatically called Jove ; and an inferior degree 
of leye is comparatively called hatred. « Pious Jacob was not such a 
churlish man as positively to hate any body, much less Leah—his cousin 
and his wife: nevertheless, we read, “The Lord saw that Leah was 
hated: the Lord hath heard that I was hated: now, therefore, my hus- 
band will love me:” i. e. Jacob will prefer me to Rachel, his barren 
wife, Gen. xxix, 31, 32. Again: Moses makes a law concerning “a 
man that hath two wives, one beloved and another hated,” without inti- 
mating that it is wrong in the husband to hate, that is, to be less fond of 
one of his wives than of the other, Deut. xxi, 15. Once more: our 
Lord was not the chaplain of the old murderer, that he should command 
us positively to hate our fathers, mothers, and wives: for he, who thus 
“hateth another, is a murderer.” Nevertheless, he not only says, “ He 
that hateth his life [that invaluable gift of God] shall keep it unto life 
eternal ; and he that loveth his life shall lose it:” but he declares, “If 
any man hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and 
‘brethren, and sisters, he cannot be my disciple,” Luke xiv, 26. Now, 
“Christ evidently means, that whosoever does not love his father, &c, 


EEO ee ClClCTmTmTLTmTm.mee eee. _ 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 99 


and his own life Jess than him, cannot be his sincere disciple. By a 
similar idiom it is said, “ Esau have I hated :” an expression this, which 
no more means that God had absolutely rejected Esau, and appointed 
him to the pit of destruction, than Christ meant that we should abso- 


lutely throw away our lives, reject our fathers, wives, and children, and 


abandon them to destruction. 


Ii. 

* Whom he will he hardeneth, 
Rom. ix, 18. 

That is, God judicially gives up 
to a reprobate mind whom he will, 
not according to Calvinistic caprice, 
but according to the rectitude of his 
own nature: and according to this 
rectitude displayed in the Gospel, 
he will give up all those who, by 
obstinately hardening their hearts 


to the last, turn the day of salvation 


into a day of final provocation, see 
Psalm xcv, 8, &c. 

He hath blinded their eyes, and 
hardened their hearts, that they 
should not see with their eyes, nor 
understand with their heart, and be 
converted, and I should heal them, 
John xii, 40. 

That is, he hath judicially given 
them up to their own blindness and 
hardness. They had said so long, 
We will not see, that he said at last 
in his just anger, They shall not 
see; determined to withdraw the 
abused, forfeited light of his grace; 
and so they were blinded. 

The Lord [in the above-mention- 
ed sense | hardened Pharaoh’s heart, 
[for his unparalleled cruelty to Is- 
rael,| Exod. i, 10, 22; vii, 13. See 
the next note. 


through the deceitfulness of sin, Heb. ui, 18. 


la 

The god of this world [not the 
Almighty] hath, [by their own free 
consent] blinded the minds of them 
that believe not. Now is the day 
of salvation. Despisest thou the 
riches of God’s goodness, forbear- 
ance, and long suffering? not know- 
ing that the goodness of God lead- 
eth thee to repentance? But after 
thy hardness, and impenitent heart, 
treasurest up unto thyself wrath, 
2 Cor. iv, 4; vi, 2; Rom. ii, 4, 5. 


In them is fulfilled the prophecy 
of Esaias, who says, By hearing ye 
shall hear, and shall not understand ; 
and, seeing, ye shall see, and shall 
net perceive. For this people’s 
heart is waxed gross [through their 
obstinately resisting the light ;] and 
their ears are dull of hearing, and 
their eyes they have closed, lest at 
any time they should see with their 
eyes, and hear with their ears, and 
should understand with their heart, 
and should be converted, and I 
should heal them, Matt. xiii, 14, 15. 

Pharaoh hardened his heart, and 
hearkened not, Exod. vili, 15. Ze 
dekiah stiffened his neck, and har- 
dened his heart from turning unte 
the Lord, 2 Chron, xxxvi, 13. Take 
heed lest any of you be hardened 
Happy is the man that 


feareth alway; but he that hardeneth his heart [as Pharaoh did] shall 
fall into mischief, [God will give him up,] Prov. xxviii, 14. They are 


* The reader is desired to take notice, that in this and the following para- 
graphs, where I produce scriptures expressive of God’s just wrath, I have shift- 
ed the numbers that mark to which axiom the passage belongs. And this I have 
done: (1.) Because there is no free wrath in God. (2.) Because, when there is 
wrath in him, man’s perverseness is the just cause of it. And (3.) Because in 
point of evil, man has the wretched diabolical honour of being first cause; and 
therefore, No. I. is his shameful prerogative, according to the principles laid 
down Sec. III. 


100 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


without excuse : because, when they knew God, they glorified him not 
as God, &c. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, &c. 
For this cause God gave them up to vile affections, &c. And even as 
they did not like to retam God in their knowledge, God gave them over 
to a reprobate mind, Rom. i, 20, 28. 


II. 

Thou wilt say then unto me, 
Why does he yet find fault? For 
who hath resisted his will? Rom. 
ix, 19. 

The rigid Calvinists triumph 
greatly in this objection started by 
St. Paul. They suppose that it 
can be reasonably levelled at no 
doctrine but their own, which teach- 
es, that God by zrresistible decrees 
has unconditionally ordained some 
men to eternal life, and others to 
eternal death; and therefore their 
doctrine is that of the apostle. To 
show the absurdity of this conclu- 
sion, I need only remind the reader 
once more, that in this chapter St. 
Paul establishes two doctrines : (1.) 
That God may admit whem he will 


I. 

Shall not the Judge of all the 
earth do right? Gen. xviii, 25. That 
thou mightest be justified in thy 
saying, and clear when thou art 
judged, Psa. li, 4. Com. Prayer. 

Who but Zelotes could justify an 
imaginary being that should, by the 
channel of irresistible decrees, pour 
sin and wrath into vessels made on 
purpose to hold both; and should 
call himself the God of love, the 
Holy One of Israel, and a God of 
judgment? Nay, who would not 
detest a king, who should absolutely 
contrive the contracted wickedness 
and crimes of his subjects, that he 
might justly sentence them to eter- 
nal torments, to show his sovereign. 
ty and power? 


into the covenant of peculiarity, out 
of pure, distinguishing, sovereign 
grace: and (2.) That he had an absolute right of hardening whom he 
will upon Gospel terms, i. e. of taking the talent of *softening grace 
from all that imitate the obstinate unbelief of Pharaoh; such mflexible 
unbelievers being the only people whom God will harden or give up to 
a reprobate mind. Now in both those respects the objection proposed 
is pertinent, as the apostle’s answers plainly show. With regard to the 
first doctrine, that is, the doctrine of that distinguishing grace, which 
puts more honour upon one vessel than upon another ; calling Abraham 
to be the Lord’s “pleasant vessel,” while Lot or Moab is only his 
“wash pot ;” the apostle answers: “ Nay, but, O man, who art thou who 
repliest against God? shall the thing formed say: to him that formed it, 
Why hast thou made me thus?” Why am I a “wash pot,” and not a 
“pleasant vessel?” “Hath not the potter power over the clay,” &c. 
Beside,'is it not a blessing to be comparatively a “ vessel to dishonour?” 
_ Had not Ishmael and Esau a blessing, though it was inferior to that of 
Isaac and Jacob? Is not a wash pot as good in its place as a drinking 
cup? Is not a righteous Gentile—a Melchisedec, or a Job, &c, as 
acceptable to God, according to his dispensation, as a devout Jew anda 


* Mr. Henry comments thus upon these words, “ I will harden his heart,” that 
is, ‘‘ withdraw softening grace,” which God undoubtedly did upon just proyoca- 
tion. Whence it follows that, inconsistent Calvinists being judges, Pharaoh 
himself had once softening grace; it being impossible for God to withdraw from 
Pharaoh’s heart what never was there. Query. Was this softening grace, which 
God withdrew from Pharaoh, of the reprobating or of the electing kind ? 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 101 


sincere Christian according to theirs? -With respect to the second doc- 
trine, that of hardening obstinate unbelievers, and “making his wrathfut 
power known” upon them: after tacitly granting that it is impossible to 
resist God’s absolute will, the apostle intimates in his laconic, and yet 
comprehensive way of writing, that God has a right to find fault with, 
and display his wrathful power upon hardened sinners, because “he har- 
dens” none, but such as have personally made themselves “vessels of 
wrath,” and “ fitted themselves for destruction” by doing despite to the 
Spirit of his grace, instead of improving their day of initial salvation : 
and he insinuates, that even then, God, instead of presently dealing with 
them according to their deserts, “endures them with much long suffer- 
ing,” which, according to St. Peter’s doctrine, is to be accounted a de- 
gree of salvation. Therefore in both senses the objection is pertinently 
proposed, and justly answered by the apostle, without the help of sove- 


reign free wrath, and Calvinistic reprobation. 
I 


Hath not the potter power over 
the clay, of the same lump to make 
one vessel unto honour, and another 
unto dishonour® Rom. ix, 21. 

Ihave observed again and again 
that the apostle with his two-edged 
sword defends two doctrines: (1.) 
The right which God, our sovereign 
benefactor, has to give five talents, 
or one talent to whom he pleases, 
that is, to admit some people to the 
covenant of peculiarity, while he 
leaves others under.a more general 
dispensation of grace and favour. 
Thus a Jew was once a vessel to 
honour, a person honoured far 
above a Gentile, and a Gentile, in 
comparison to a Jew, might be 
called “a vessel to dishonour.” 
Moab, to use again the psalmist’s 
expression, was once only God’s 
‘wash pot,” Psa. lx, 8, while Israel 
was his “pleasant vessel.” But 
now the case is altered: the Jews 
are nationally become the “ vessel 
wherein there is no pleasure,” and 
the Gentiles are the “ pleasant ves- 
sel.” And where is the injustice 
of this proceeding? If a potter may 
make of the same lump of clay what 
vessel he pleases, some for the 
dining room, and others for the 
meanest apartment, all good and 
useful in their respective places ; 
why should not God have the same 


. Il. 

The vessel that he [the potter] 
made of clay, was marred in the 
hand of the potter; so he made it 
again into another vessel, as seemed 
good to the potter, &c. O house 
of Israel, cannot I do with you as 
this potter, says the Lord, &c. At 
what instant I shall speak concern- 
ing a nation, &c, to destroy [for its 
wickedness :] if that nation, against 
whom I have pronounced, turn from 
their evil, I will repent of the evil 
that I thought to do unto them. 
And at what instant I shall speak 
concerning a nation, &c, to build 
it, of at do evil in my sight, that it 
obey not my voice, then I will repent 
of the good wherewith I said I 
would benefit them, Jer. xviii, 4. 

When St. Paul wrote Rom. ix, 
21, he had probably an eye to the 
preceding passage of Jeremiah, 
which is alone sufficient to rectify 
the mistakes of Zelotes; there be- 
ing scarce a stronger text to prove 
that God’s decrees respeeting our 
salvation and destruction are condi- 
tional. Never did “Sergeant uF” 
guard the genuine doctrines of 
grace more valiantly, or give Cal- 
vinism a more desperate thrust than 
he does in the potter’s house by the 
pen of Jeremiah. However, lest 
that prophet’s testimony should not 
appear sufficiently weighty to Ze- 


i02 


LF 

liberty? Why should he not, if he 
chooses it, place some moral vessels 
above others, and raise the Gentiles 
to the honour of being his peculiar 
people?’ An unspeakable honour 
this, which was before granted to 
the Jews only. 

The apostle’s second doctrine 
respects “vessels of mercy and 
vessels of wrath,” which in the 
present case must be carefully 
distinguished from the “vessels to 
honour,” or to nobler uses, and 
“the vessels to dishonour,” or to 
less noble uses: and, if I mistake 
not, this distinction is one of those 
things which, as St. Peter observes, 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 


Il. 
lotes, I strengthen it by an express 
declaration of God himself :— 

“ Have I any pleasure at all that 
the wicked should die, saith the 
Lord ; and not that he should return 
from his ways and live? Yet ye say, 
The way of the Lord is net equal 
[in point of election to eternal life, 
and appointment to’ eternal death.] 
Hear now, O house of Israel, Is not 
my way equal? When a righteous 
man turneth away from his nght- 
eousness, &c, for his iniquity shall 
he die. Agam: when a wicked 
man turneth from his wickedness, 
&c, he shall save his soul -alive, 
Ezek. xviii, 23, &c. 


are “hard to be understood in 

Paul’s epistles.” ‘The importance of it appears from this consideration : 
God may, as a just and gracious sovereign, absolutely make a moral 
vessel for a more or less honourable use, as he pleases; such a pre- 
ference of one vessel to another being no more inconsistent with Divine 
goodness, than the king’s appointing one of his subjects lord of the bed 
chamber, and another only groom of the stable, is inconsistent with royal 
good nature. But this is not the case with respect ww “ vessels of mercy” 
and “vessels of wrath.” If you insinuate, with Zelotes, that an absolute 
God, to show his absolute love and wrath, absolutely made some men 
to fill them unconditionally and eternally with love and mercy, and others 
to fill them unconditionally and eternally with hatred and wrath, by way 
of reward and punishment, you “change the truth of God into a lie,” 
and serve the great Diana of the Calvinists more than the righteous 
Judge of all the earth. Whatever Zelotes may think of it, God never 
made an adult a vessel of eternal mercy that did not first submit to the 
obedience of faith; nor did he ever absolutely look upon any man as a 
vessel of wrath, that had not by personal, obstinate unbelief first fitted 
himself for destruction. Considering then the comparison of the potter 
as referring in a secondary sense to the “vessels of mercy,” and to the 
“vessels of wrath,” it cqnveys the following rational and Scriptural 
ideas :—May not God, as the righteous maker of moral vessels. Sil with 
mercy or with wrath whom he will, according to his essential wisdom 
and rectitude? May he not shed abroad his pardoning mercy and love 
in the heart of a believing Gentile, as well as in the. breast of a believing 
Jew? And may he not give up to a reprobate mind, yea, fill with the 
sense of his just wrath a stubborn Jew, a Caiaphas, as well as a refractory 
Gentile, a Pharaoh? Have not Jews and Gentiles a common original ? 
And may not the Author of their common existence, as their impartial 
law giver, determine to save or damn individuals, upon the gracious and 
equitable terms of the Gospel dispensations? Is he bound absolutely to 
give all the blessings of the Messiah’s kingdom to Abraham’s posterity, 
and absolutely to reprobate the rest of the world? Has a Jew more right 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 103 


to “reply against God” than a Gentile? When God propounds his terms 
of salvation, does it become any man to “say to him that formed him, 
Why hast thou made me thus” subject to thy government ? Why must 
I submit to thy terms? If God without injustice could appoint that Christ 
should descend from Isaac, and not from Ishmael ; if, before Esau and 
Jacob had done any good or evil, he could fix that the blood of Jacob, 
and not that of Esau, should yun in his Son’s veins; though Esau was 
Isaac’s child as well as Jacob: how much more may he, without break- 
ing the promise, made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, fix that the free- 
willing believer, whether Jew or Gentile, shall be a “vessel of mercy 
prepared for glory,” chiefly by free grace; and that the free-willng 
unbeliever shall be a “vessel of wrath, fitted,” chiefly by free will, “for 
just destruction ?” Is not this doctrine agreeable to our Lord’s expostula- 
tion, With “the light of life. which lightens every man, you will not 
come unto me that you might have life—more abundant life—yea, life 
evermore ?” Does it not perfectly tally with the great, irrespective decrees 
of conditional election and reprobation, “ He that believeth, and is bap- 
tized,” that is, he that shows his faith by correspondent works, when hi 
Lord comes to reckon with him, “shall be saved: and he that believeth 
not,” though he” were baptized, “shall be damned?” And is it not 
astonishing, that when St. Paul’s meaning in Rom ix, can be so easily 
opened by the silver and golden key, which God himself has sent us 
from heaven, I mean reason and Scripture, so many pious divines should 
go to Geneva, and humbly borrow Calvin’s wooden and iron key, I mean 
his election and reprobation? Two keys these, which are in as great 
repute among injudicious Protestants, as the keys of his holiness are 
among simple Papists. Nor do I see what great difference there is 
between the Romish and the Geneva keys: if the former open and shut 
a fool’s paradise, or a knave’s purgatory, do not the latter shut us all up 
in finished salvation or finished damnation ? 

Zelotes indeed does not often use the power of the keys; one key 
does generally for him. He is 2: times so ashamed of the iron key, 
which is black and heavy ; and so pleased with the wooden key, which 
is light and finely gilt ; that instead of holding them out fairly and jointly 
as St. Peter’s pictures do the keys of hell and heaven, he makes the 
shining key alone glitter in the sight of his charmed hearers. Now and 
then, however, when he is driven to a corner by a judicious opponent, 
he pulls out his iron key, and holding it forth in triumph, he asks, “ Who 
has resisted his will?” To these wrested words of St. Paul he probably 
adds two or three perverted scriptures— 

Which I beg leave to weigh next in my Scales. 

Shall [natural evil] be inthe city, | They have [done moral evil]— 
and the Lord hath not done it [for they have built the high places of 
the punishment of the ungodly, and Baal to burn their sons with fire, 
for the greater good of the godly?] &c, which I commanded not, nor 
Amos iu, 6. spake it, neither came it into my 

mind—neither came it into my 
heart, Jer. xix, 5; vii, 31. The sceptre of thy kingdom is a right 
sceptre: thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness, Psa. xly, 6. 
Abhor that which is evil, Rom. xii, 9. Thus saith the Lord, I will 
bring [natural] evil upon this city, &c, because they have hardened 


104 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 
their necks, that they might not hear my words, Jer. xix, 15. There- 
fore, when David says, that “the Lord does whatsoever pleaseth him,” 
he does not speak of either man’s sin or duty, but only of God’s own 
work, which Hx absolutely intends to perform. (1.) Not of man’s sin: 
for “God is not a God that hath pleasure in wickeaness,” Psa. y, 4. 
Nor (2.) Of man’s duty: for though a master may do his servant’s 
work, yet he can never do his servant’s duty. It can never be a mas- 
ter’s duty to obey his own commands: the servant must do it himself, 


or his duty (as duty) must remain for ever undone. 


There are certain men, &c, who* 
were before of old ordained to this 
condemnation, &c,[namely, the con- 
demnation of] the angels who kept 
not their first estate, but left their 
own habitation, [whom] he [God] 
hath reserved in ever!ssting chains 
unto the judgment of the great day, 
Jude, verses 4, 6. 


2 

To them that are disobedient, 
&c, he is a rock of offence, even 
to them who stumble at the word, 
being disobedient, whereunto also 
they were appointed: [or rather] 


L 

Ungodly men, turning the grace 
of our God into lasciviousness, and 
denying, &c, our Lord Jesus Christ, 
[as lawgiver, judge, and king, | &c. 
These be they who separate them- 
selves [from their self-denying 
brethren] sensual, not having the 
Spirit [i. e. having quenched the 
Spirit]—walking after their own 
lusts; and their mouth speaketh 
great swelling words [whereby they 
creep in unawares into rich wi- 
dows’ houses ; seducing the fattest 
of the flock, and] having men’s 
persons in admiration because of 
advantage, verses 4, 16, 19. 

Ye will not come to me that ye 
might have life, John vy, 40. Ye 
put the word of God from you, and 
judge yourselves unworthy of eter 
nal life, Acts xiii, 46. 


whereunto [namely, to be disobe- 
dient] theyt have even disposed [or 
settled] themselves, 1 Peter ii, 7, 8. 


* The words xada TOoyEYPappEevat rendered ‘‘ before of old ordained,” literally, 
mean “ formerly forewritten, foretypified, or foredescribed.” The condemnation 
of these backsliders, or apostates, was of old forewritten by David, Psa. exxy, 
5; and by Ezekiel, chap. xviii, 24. Their lusts were of old foretypified by those 
of Sodom; their apostasy by that of the fallen angels; and their perdition by 
that of the Israelites, whom the Lord ‘‘saved out of the land of Egypt,” and 
‘afterward destroyed” for their unbelief; three typical descriptions these, which 
St. Jude himself immediately produces, verses 5, 6, 7; together with Enoch’s 
prophecy of the Lord’s coming ‘“‘to convince them of all their ungodly deeds” 
and hard speeches,” verses 15,17. Is it not strange then that Zelotes should 
build his notions of absolute reprobation upon a little mistake of our translators, 
which is contrary both to the Greek and to the context? ‘* Beloved,” says St. 
Jude, verse 17, ‘‘remember ye the words [xpweignpevwy, ‘ forespoken,’ answering 
to xpoysyoappevot, ‘forewritten,’ and not ‘foreappointed,’] which were spoken 
before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.” For the apostles, no doubt, 
often enlarged upon these words of their Master: ‘“ Because iniquity shall abound 
the love of many shall wax cold [and they will fall away;} but he that shall 
endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” 

+ A beautiful face may have some freckles. Our translation is good, but it has 
its blemishes; nor is it one of the least to represent God as appointing men to be ~ 


SECOND. | SCRIPTURE SCALES, 105 


I shall close the preceding scriptures by some arguments which show 
the absurdity of supposing that there can be any free wrath in a just 
and good God. (1.) When Adan, with all his posterity in his loins, 
came forth out of the hands of his Maker, he was pronounced very good, 


disobedient. ‘To vindicate all the Divine perfections, which such a doctrine in- 
jures, of the two meanings that the word fairly bears in the original, I need cnly 
choose that which is not repugnant to reason and Scripture. If charity, which 
* thinketh no evil and hopeth all things” consistently with reason,—if charity, 1 
say, obliges us to put the best construction upon the words of our neighbour, 
how much more should decency oblige us to do it with respect to the word of 
God? When a modest person drops a word, that bears either a chaste or an un- 
chaste meaning, is it not cruel absolutely to fix an “‘ unchaste” meaning upon it? 
To show that St. Peter’s words bear the meaning which I fix to them, I need only 
prove two things. (1.) That the original word cre$ncav, which is translated “ap- 
pointed,” means also ‘‘ settled” or ‘‘ disposed.” And (2.) That a passive word in 
the Greek tongue frequently bears the meaning of the Hebrew voice called “ hith- 
pahel,” which signifies the making oneself to do a thing, or the being caused 
by oneself to do it: a voice this, which in some degree answers to the middle 
voice of the Greeks, some tenses of which equally bear an active or a passive 
sense. To prove the first point, I appeal only to two texts, where the word 
7Snue undoubtedly bears the meaning which I contend for. Luke xxi, 14, Seode 
“ snrtzs it in your hearts;” and Luke ix, 62, evSeros ‘* fit,” or more literally “ well 
pisPposED for the kingdom of God.” And to prove my second proposition, (beside 
what I have already said upon that head, in my note upon Mr. Madan’s mistake, 
p- 77,) I present the critical reader with indubitable instances of it, even in our 
translation. Jude, verse 10, @Scipovra:, they are corrupted, or, ‘‘they corrupt 
THEMSELVES.” 2 Cor. xi, 13, peracynparionevor, being transformed, or, ‘ transform. 
® ing themselves.” Acts xviii, 6, aurwy avriraccopevwr, literally, they being opposed, 
or, as we have it in our Bibles, ‘‘ when they opposed themselves.” John xx, 14, 
eorpagn, She (Mary) was turned, or ‘“‘she turned herself.” Matt. xvi, 23, Jesus 
oroages, being turned, or, “turning himself” Matt. xxvii, 3, Judas perapednSecs, 
having been penitent, or, ‘having repented himself,” &c, &c. In such cases 
as these the sacred writers use indifferently the active and passive voice, because 
klzn acts, and is acted upon: he is worked upon, and he works. Thus we read 
Acts iii, 19, emorps Ware, “convert,” namely, yourselves, ‘actively ;” though our 
translators render it passively, ‘“‘ be converted:” and Luke xxii, 32, our Lord, 
speaking to Peter, does not say, extorpagers, “‘ when thou art converted,” passively ; 
but actively, exiotpeWas, ‘‘ when thou hast converted,” namely, “‘ thyself.” Now, 
if in so many cases our translators have justly rendered passive words, by werds 
expressing ‘‘a being acted upon by ourselves,” I desire Zelotes to show, by any 
one good argument, taken from criticism, Scripture, reason, conscience, or de- 
cency, that we must render the word of our text ‘‘they were appointed,” namely, 
by God, ‘tc be disobedient,” wlien the word ereSycav may with as much propriety 
as in all the preceding cases, be rendered they disposed, set, or ‘‘ settled them- 
selves unto disobedience.” What has the Holy One of Israel done to us, that we 
should dishonour him by charging our disobedience upon ‘‘his appointment ?” 
Are we so fond of the doctrines of grace, finished salvation, and finished damna- 
tion, that, in order to maintain the latter, we must represent God as appointing, 
out of sovereign, distinguishing free wrath, the disobedience of the reprobates, 
that by securing the ‘“‘ means”—their unbelief and sin, he may also secure the 
* end”—their everlasting burnings ? 
Zeiotss makes too much of some figurative expressions in the sacred writings. 
He forgets, that what is said of God, must always be understood in such a man- 
ner as becomes God. If it would be absurd to take literally what the Scriptures 
say of God’s “plucking his right hand out of his bosom;” of ‘‘ his awakening as 
one out of sleep ;” of ‘his riding upon the heavens;” of bis ‘‘smelling a sweet 
savour from a burnt offering ;” of his ‘‘ lending an ear,” &c, is it not much more 
absurd to take the three following texts in a literal sense? (1.) 2 Sam. xvi, 10, 
“The Lord said unto him, [Shimei,] Curse David.” Is it not evident that David's 
meaning in these words is only this? ‘The Lord, by bringing me to the de- 
plorable circumstances in which I now find myself, has justly given an oppor 


p . 


: 


106 - * ‘EQUAL CHECK. [wart 


as being “ made in the likeness of God,” and “ after the image of him,” 
who is a perfect compound of every possible perfection. God spake 
those words in time ; but if we believe Zelotes, the supposed decree of 
absolute, personal rejection, was made before time ; God having fixed, 
from all eternity, that Esau should be absolutely hated. Now, as Esau 
stood in and with Adam, before he fell in and with him; and as God 
could not but consider him as standing and righteous, before he consi- 
dered him fallen and sinful ; it necessarily follows, either that Calvinism 


tunity to Shimei to insult me with impunity, and to upbraid me publicly with my 
crimes. This opportunity I call ‘a bidding,’ to humble myself under the hand 
of God, who lashes my guilty soul by this afflictive providence ; but I would not 
insinuate that God literally said to Shimei, ‘Curse David,’ any more than I would 
affirm that he said to me, Murder Uriah.” 

(2.) God is represented, 2 Sam. xii, 11, as saying to David, ‘I will take thy 
wives before thine eyes, and give them to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with 
them in the sight of this sun, for thou didst it secretly, but I will do it before all 
Israel.” And accordingly God took the bridle of his restraining power out of 
Absalom’s heart, who had already murdered his own brother, and was, it seems, 
by that time a vessel of wrath self fitted for destruction. The Divine restraint 
being thus removed, the corrupted youth rushes upon the ‘‘ outward” commission 
of those crimes which he had perhaps a hundred times committed in “‘ intention,” 
and from which the Lord had hitherto kept him, out of regard for his pious father 
—a regard this, which David had now forfeitea py his atrocious crimes. The 
meaning of the whole passage seems then to be this: ‘* Thou shalt be treated 
as thou hast served Uriah. Thy wild son Absalom has already robbed thee of 


thy crown, and defiled thy wives in his ambitious, libidinous heart. When thou _ 


wast a good man—a man after my own heart, I hindered him from going such 
lengths in wickedness, but now I will hinder him no more: he shall be thy 
scourge; thou sinnedst secretly against Uriah, but I will stand in the way of 
thy wicked son no longer, and he shall retaliate before the sun.” ‘This implies 
only a passive permission, and a providential opportunity to commit a crime 
“outwardly,” nor could wicked men ever proceed to the ‘‘ external execution” 
of their designs without such opportunities. 

(3.) By a like figure of speech we read, Psa. ev, 25, that ‘‘ God turned the 
“heart of the Egyptians to hate his people, and to deal subtilly with his servants.” 
But how did he do this? Was it by doing the devil’s work ? by infusing hatred 
into the hearts of the Egyptians? No: it was merely by blessing and multiply- 
ing the Israelites, as the preceding words demonstrate: ‘‘ He increased his people 
greatly, and made them stronger than their enemies.” Hence it was that fear, 
envy, jealousy, and hatred, were naturally stirred up in the breasts of the Egyp- 
tians. I repeat it; not to explain such scriptures in the manner becoming the 
God of holiness is far more detestable than to assert, that ‘‘ the Ancient of Days” 
literally wears a robe, and his own white hair, because Daniel, after having seen 
an emblematic vision of his majesty and purity, said, ‘‘ His garment was white 
as snow, and the hair of his head was like the pure wool.” For every body must 
allow, that it is far less indecent “literally” to hold forth God as a venerable 
Jacob, than to represent him “literally” as a mischievous, sin-infusing Belial. 

(4.) With regard to Jer. xx, 7, ‘‘O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was de- 
ceived,” Mr. Sellon justly observes: (1.) That the Hebrew word here translated 
‘“deceive,” signifies also to ‘“‘entice” or ‘‘ persuade,” as the margin shows, And 
(2.) That the context requires the last sense; the prophet expressing his natural 
backwardness to preach, and saying, ‘‘O Lord, thou hast persuaded me” to do it, 
“and I was persuaded.” It is a pity, that when a word has two meanings, the 
one honourable, and the other injurious to God, the worst should once be prefer- 
red to the better. If Zelotes take these hints, he will no more avail himself of 
some figurative expressions, and of some mistakes of our translators, to repregent 
God as the author of sin and the deceiver of men. When wicked men have long 
resisted the truth, God may indeed, and frequently does, judicially “ give them up 
to believe a destructive lie ;” but he is no more the author of the lie, than he is 
Beelzebub, ‘‘the father of lies.” ‘ . 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 107 


is a system of false doctrine; or, that the God of love, holiness, and 
equity, once hated his righteous creature, once reprobated the innocent, 
and said by his decree, “ Cain, Esau, Saul and Judas are very good, for 
they are seminal parts of Adam my son, whom I pronounce very good, 
Gen. i, 31. But I actually hate those parts of my unsullied workman- 
ship: without any actual cause, I detest mine own perfect image. Yea, 
I turn my eyes from their present complete goodness, that I may hate 
them for their future pre-ordained iniquity.” Suppose the God of love 
had transformed himself into the evil principle of the Manichees, what 
could he haye done worse than thus to hate with immortal hatred, and 
absolutely to reprobate his innocent, his pure, his spotless offspring, at 
the very time in which he pronounced it very good? If Zelotes shud- 
ders at his own doctrine, and finds himself obliged to grant, that so long, 
at least, as Adam stood, Cain, Esau, Saul, and Judas stood with him, and 
in him were actually loved, conditionally chosen, and wonderfully blessed 
of God in paradise ; it follows that the doctrine of God’s everlasting 
hate, and of the eternal, absolute rejection of those whom Zelotes consi- 
ders as the four great reprobates, is founded on the grossest contradic- 
tion imaginable. 

2. But Zelotes possibly complains that I am unfair, because I point 
out the deformity of his “doctrine of grace,” without saying one word 
of its beauty. “Why do you not,” says he, “speak of God’s absolute 
everlasting love to Jacob, as well as of his absolute, everlasting hate to 
Esau, Pharaoh, and Judas? Is it right to make always the worst of 
things?” Indeed, Zelotes, if I am not mistaken, your absolute election 
is full as subversive of Christ’s Gospel, as your absolute reprobation. 
The Scripture informs us, that when Adam fell he lost the favour, as 
well as the image of God; and that he became “a vessel of wrath” 
from head to foot: but if everlasting, changeless love. still embraced 
innumerable parts of his seed, his fall was by no means so grievous 
and universal as the Scriptures represent it: for “a multitude, which 
no man can number,” ever stood, and shall ever stand on the Rock of 
ages: a rock this which, if we believe Zelotes, is made of unchangeable, 
absolute, sovereign, everlasting love for the elect, and of unchangeable, 
absolute, sovereign, everlasting wrath for the reprobates. 

3. But this is only part of the mischief that necessarily flows from 
the fictitious doctrmes of grace. ‘They make the cup of trembling, 
which our Lord drank in Gethsemane, and the sacrifice which he 
offered on Calvary, in a great degree insignificant. Christ’s office as 
high priest was to sprinkle the burning throne with his precious blood, 
and to “turn away wrath” by the sacrifice of himself: but if there 
neyer was either a burning throne, or any wrath flaming against the 
elect; if unchangeable love ever embraced them, how greatly is the 
oblation of Christ’s blood depreciated? Might he not almost have 
saved himself the trouble of coming down from heaven to “turn away 
a wrath” which never flamed against the elect, and which shall never 
cease to flame against the reprobates ? 

4.«From God’s preaching the Gospel to our first parents it appears 
that they were of the number of the elect, and Zelotes himself is of 
opinion that they belonged to the little flock. If this was the case, 
according to the doctrine of free, sovereign, unchangeable, everlasting 


108 "EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


love to the elect, it necessarily follows, that Adam himself was never a 
child of wrath. Nor does it require more faith to believe that our first 
parents were God’s pleasant children, when they sated themselves 
with forbidden fruit, than to believe that David and Bathsheba were 
persons after God’s own heart, when they defiled Uriah’s bed. Hence 
it follows that the doctrine of God’s everlasting love, in the Crispian 
sense of the word, is absolutely false, or that Adam himself was a 
child of changeless, everlasting love, when he made his wife, the ser- 
pent, and his own belly, his trinity under the fatal tree: while Cain — 
was a child of everlasting wrath, when God said of him, in his father’s 
loins, that he was very good. Thus we still find ourselves at the 
shrine of the great Diana of the Calvinists, singing the new song of 
salvation and damnation finished from everlasting to everlasting, 
according to the doctrine laid down by the Westminster divines in 
their catechism: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and 
holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatever 
comes to pass.” 

5. This leads me to a third argument. If God from all eternity did 
“unchangeably ordain” all events, and, in particular, that the man 
Christ should absolutely die to save a certain, fixed number of men, 
who (by the by) never were children of wrath, and therefore never 
were in the least danger of perishing: if he unalterably appointed that 
the devil should tempt, and absolutely prevail over a certain fixed 
number of men who were children of wrath, before temptation and 
sin made them so: if this is the case, I say, how idle was Christ’s 
redeeming work! How foolish the tempter’s restless labour! How 
absurd Zelotes’ preaching! How full of inconsistency his law messa- 
ges of wrath to the elect, and his Gospel messages of free grace to 
the reprobates! And how true the doctrine, which has lately appeared 
in print, and sums up the Crispian gospel in these sentences :—Ye, 
elect, shall be saved do what ye will; and ye, reprobates, shall be 
damned, do what ye can; for in the day of his power the Almighty 
will make you all absolutely willing to go to the place which he has 
unconditionally ordained you for, be it heaven or hell; God, if we 
believe the Westminster divines, in their catechism, “ haying unchange- 
ably foreordained whatever comes to pass in time, especially concern- 
ing angels and men.” An unscriptural doctrine this, which charges all 
sin and damnation upon God, and perfectly agrees with the doctrine 
of the consistent Calvinists, I mean the doctrine of finished salvation 
and finished damnation, thus summed up by Bishop Burnet in his 
exposition of the seventeenth article: “They think, &c, that he,” 
God, “decreed Adam’s sin, the lapse of his posterity, and Christ’s 
death, together with the salvation and damnation of such men as 
should be most for his own glory: that to those that were to be saved 
he decreed to give such efficacious assistances as should certainly put 
them in the way of salvation; and to those whom he rejected, he 
decreed to give sucn assistances and means only as should render 
them inexcusable.” Just as if those people could ever be inewedsable 
who only do what their almighty Creator has “unchangeably foreor- 
dained !” 


SECOND.| SCRIPTURE SCALES- 109 


SECTION XII. 


Directions to understand the Scripture doctrine of election and reproba- 
tion—What election and reprobation are UNCONDITIONAL, and what 
coNDITIONAL— There is an unconditional election of sovereign, dis- 
tinguishing grace, and a conditional election of impartial, rewarding 
goodness—The difficulties which attend the doctrines of election and 
reprobation are solved by means of the Gospel dispensations; and 
those doctrines are illustrated by the parable of the talents—A 
Scriptural view of our election in Christ. 


Wuen good men, like Zelotes and Honestus, warmly contend about 
a doctrine; charging one another with heresy in their controversial 
heats, each has certainly a part of the truth on his side. Would 
you have the whole, Candidus? Only act the part. of an attentive 
moderator between them: embrace their extremes at once, and you 
will embrace truth in her seamless garment,—the complete “truth as 
it is in Jesus.” This is demonstrable by their opposite sentiments 
about the doctrine of election. Zelotes will hear only of an uncondi- 
tional, and Honestus only of a conditional election: but the word of 
God is for both; and our wisdom consists in neither separating nor 
confounding what the Holy Ghost has joined, and yet distinguished. 

To understand the Scripture doctrine of election, take the following 
directions: 1. God is a God of truth. His righteous ways are as far 
above our hypocritical ways, as heaven is above hell: every calling, 
therefore, implies an election on his part. Who can believe that God 
ever demeans his majestic veracity so far as to call people, whom he 
does not choose should obey his call? Who can think that the Most 
High plays boyish tricks? And if he chooses that those whom he 


calls should come, a sincere election has undoubtedly preceded his” 


calling. Nor are the well-known words of our Lord, Matt. xxii, 44, 
“Many are called, but few are chosen,” at all contrary to this asser- 
tion: for the context evidently shows that the meaning of this compen- 
dious elliptic saying is, “ Many are called’’ to faith and holiness, “ but 
few are chosen” to the rewards of faith and holiness. “Many are 
called” to be God’s servants, and to receive his talents, “but few,” 
‘comparatively, “are chosen” to enjoy the blessing of “ good and faith- 
ful” servants. “Many are called to run the race but few are chosen 
to receive the prize.” Not because God has absolutely reprobated 
any, in the Calvinian sense of the words,-but because few are willing 
to “deny themselves ;” few care to “labour ;” few are faithful, few 
“so run that they may obtain;” few “make their initial calling and 
election sure” to the end; and of the many that are called to enter 
into the kingdom of God, few strive so to do; and therefore few “shall 
be able,” see Luke xiii, 24. 

2. According to the dispensation of “the saving grace of God, 
whigh hath appeared to all men;” so long as the “day of salva- 
tion” lasts, all men are sincerely called, and therefore sincerely 
chosen to believe in their light, to fear God, and to work right- 
eousness. This general election and calling may be illustrated by 
the general benevolence of a good king toward all his subjects. 


a 


110 EQUAL CHECK, * PART 


Whether they are peasants or courtiers, he elects them all to loy- 
alty, that is, he chooses that they should all be loyal; and in con- 
sequence of this choice, by his royal statutes, he calls them all to 
be so. But when a rebellion breaks out, many do not “make their 
calling and election sure ;” that is, many join the rebels, and in so 
doing forfeit their titles, estates, and lives. However, as many as 
oppose the rebels become hereby peculiarly entitled to the privileges 
of loyal subjects, which are greater or less according to their rank, 
and according to the boroughs or cities of which they have the free- 
dom. Upon this general plan, as many of Adam’s sons as, in any 
one part of the earth, make God’s general calling and election sure, 
by actually fearing God, &c, are rewardable elect, according to the 
Faruer’s dispensation: that is, God actually approves of them, con- 
sidered as obedient persons, and he designs eternally to reward their 
sincere obedience, if they “continue faithful unto death,” Col. i, 23; 
Rey. ii, 10. 

3. Distinguishing, or particular grace, chooses, and, of ¢ consequence, 

*calls some men to believe explicitly in the,Messiah to come, or in the 
Messiah already come ; and as many as sincerely do so, are rewardable 
elect according to the Soy’s dispensation, when it is distinguished from 
that of the Sririr, as in John vii, 38, 39; for in general Christ’s dis- 
pensation takes in that of the Holy Ghost, especially since “«« Christ is 
glorified,” and when he is “known after the flesh nomore.” Compare 
John xvi, 7, with 2 Cor. vy, 16. 

4. A still higher degree of distinguishing grace elects, and of conse- 
quence calls, believers in Christ to take by force the kingdom which 
consists in “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost ;” and as 
many as make this calling and election sure, are God’s rewardable elect, 
according to the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. 
~ 5, All true worshippers belong to one or another of thee three 
classes of elect. The first class is made up of devowt heathens, who 
worship in the court of the Gentiles. The second class is formed of 
devout Jews, cr of such babes i Christ as are yet comparatively carnal, 
like John’s disciples, or those of our Lord before the day of pentecost. 
These worship in the holy place. And the third class is composed of 
those holy souls who, by being fully possessed of Christ’s Spirit, deserve 
to be called Christians in the full sense of the word. ‘These (which, in 
our Laodicean days, I fear, are a little flock indeed) are all perfected in 
one, and, having “entered within the veil,” worship now “in the holy 
of holies.” 

6. In order to eternal saleanienk those three classes of elect mus} 
not only “make their calling and election sure,” by continuing to-day 
in the faith of their dispensation; but also by going on “from faith to 
faith ;” by rising from one dispensation to another, if they are called to 
it; and, above all, by (“patiently continuing in well doing,” or by “ being 
faithful unto death ;” none but such “having the promise of a crown 
of life that fadeth not away.” 

7. Distinguishing grace not only chooses some persons to see the 
felicity of God’s chosen in the two great covenants of peculiarity, called 
the law of Moses, and the Gospel of Christ ; but it elects thera also to 
peculiar dignities, or uncommon services in those dispensations. Thus 


¢ 


OND.| SCRIPTURE SCALES. 111 


Moses was elected to be the great prophet and lawgiver of the Jews: 
Aaron to be the first high priest of the Jewish dispensation: Saul, 
David, and Solomon, to be the three first kings of God’s chosen nation. 
Thus again the seventy were chosen above ‘the multitude of the other 
disciples, the twelve above the seventy ; Peter, James, and John, above 
the twelve; and St. Paul, it seems, above Peter, James, and John. 
The following scriptures refer to this kind of extraordinary choice—to 
this election of peculiar grace :—“ Moses his chosen stood in the gap. 
The man’s rod whom J shall choose shall blossom. The man whom the 
Lord shall choose, he shall be holy,” that is, he shall be set apart for the 
priesthood. “He chose David his servant, and took him from the sheep 
fold. Before I formed thee,” Jeremiah, “in the belly, I knew thee; and 
before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee,” or, i set 
thee apart, “and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Of his 
disciples he chose twelve apostles. “He,” Paul, “is a chosen vessel 
unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles.” Agreeably to the 
doctrine of these peculiar elections to singular services, it is even said 
of Cyrus, a heathen king, by whose means the Jews were to be delivered 
from the Babylonish captivity: “ Cyrus is my shepherd, and shall” or 
will “‘ perform ail my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, 
and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid, &c. For Jacob my 
servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy 
name, though thou hast not known me.” Once more: David, speaking 
of God’s choosing the tribe of Judah before all the other tribes, says: 
«“ Moreover he refused the tabernacle cf Joseph, and” reprobated, or 
« chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose” or elected “the tribe of 
Judah, the Mount Sion, which he” peculiarly “loved.” But what have 
all thése civil or ecclesiastical elections of persons and places to do with 
our election to a crown of glory ? Will Zelotes affirm that Saul and Jehu 
are certainly in heaven, because they were as remarkably chosen to the 
crown as David himself? And though St. Paul knew that he was “a 
chosen vessel, set apart from his mother’s womb” for great services in 
the Church, does he not inform us that he “so ran as to obtain the 
crown ;” and that he “kept his body under lest, after he had preached to,” 
and saved “ others, he himself should become a castaway—a reprobate ?” 
8. Do not forget that frequently the word chosen, or elect, means 
principal, choice, having a peculiar degree of superiority, or excellence. 


_ This is evident from the following texts: “The wragh of God smote 


down the chosen of Israel,” Psa. Ixxviii, 31. “I lay in Sion a chief 
corner stone, elect, and precious,” 1 Peter ii, 6. “The elder to the 
elect lady,” 2 John 1. And it would be the height of Calvinian ortho- 
doxy to suppose that the prophet’s words, “Thy choicest,” or, as the 
original properly means, “ thy elect valleys shall be full of chariots,” are 
to be understood of Calvinian election. To render Zelotes less confi- 
dent in that election, one would think it sufficient to throw into the 


Seripture Scales, and weigh before him, the following passages, which 


are literally translated from the original :— 


For Israel, nie elect, I have He [Kish] had a son whose 


called thee, Isa. xiv, 4 name was Saul, an elect, 1 Sam 


- 1X, on 


112 
I. 


The election hath obtained it, 
Rom. xi, 7. 

I have made a covenant with my 
chosen [or elect.| I have exalted 
one chosen out of the people. Mine 
elect shall inherit it, Psa. xxxix, 3, 
19 ; Isa. Ixv, 9. 


The children of thy elect sister 
greet thee, 2 John 13. 

His elect, whom he hath chosen, 
Mark xiii, 20. 

I endure all things for the elect’s 
sake, 2'Tim. 11,10. O ye children 
of Jacob, his chosen ones, 1 Chron. 
xvi, 13. 


I charge thee before the* elect 
angels, 1 Tim. v, 21. And shall 
not God avenge his own elect’? 
Luke xviii, 7. " 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[Part 


Il. ; 
Query. Is Saul also among the 
elect as well as among the prophets ? 
Set on a pot: fill it with the 
bones of the election, Ezek. xxiv, 4. 
She committed her whoredoms 
with the elect of Assyria, Ezek. 


xxili, 7. The tongue of the just is 
Receive know- . 


as chosen silver. 
ledge rather than elect gold, Prov. 
x, 20; viii, 10. 

They shall cut down thine elect 
cedars, Jer. xii, 7. 

He [Jacob] chose all the elect of 
Israel, 2 Sam. x, 9. 

Moab is spoiled, his elect young 
men are gone down to the slaugh- 
ter, Jer. xlvili, 15. His [Pha- 
raoh’s] elect captains also are 
drowned, Exod. xy, 4. 

Amaziah gathered Judah toge- 
ther, é&c, and found them three 
hundred thousand elect, able to go 
forth to war, 2 Chron. xxv, 5. 


_ I grant that our translators, in some of the preceding passages, have 
used the word choice, and not the word elect. They say, for example, 
“ choice cedars,” and not “ elect cedars ;” but if they were afraid to make 
us suspect the dignity of Calvinian election, 1 am not. And @s the 
original is on my side, the candid reader will not expect such serupu- 
lousness of me, who wish to act the part of a reconciler, and not that 
of a Calvinist. 

9. God’s choosing and ‘calling us to “come up higher” on the lad- 
der of the dispensations of his grace, is called election and yocation. 
Thus the doctrine which St. Paul insists much upon in his Epistles to the 
Romans and Ephesians, is, that now Jews and Gentiles are equally elected 
and called to the privileges of the Christian dispensation. Nor does St. 
Peter dissent from him in this respect. Once indeed he took it for granted 
that the Gentiles were all reprobates; see Acts x. But when he was 
divested of his Jewish prejudices, and wrote to the believers who were 
“scattered throughout Pontus,” &c, he said “the Church that is at Baby- 
lon, elected together with you, saluteth you,” 1 Peter y, 13. Just as 


* If the expression “ elect angel” is taken in a vague sense, which is most pro- 
bable, it means holy, beloved angels, who are elected to the rewards of faithful 
obedience. If it be taken in a particular sense, it means those angels who, like 
Gabriel, are selected from the multitude of the heavenly host, and sent forth to 
minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation, and especially to guard such 
eminent preachers as Timothy and St. Paulwere. In either sense, therefore, the 
words elect angels, which Zelotes greedily catches at to prop up his scheme, 
have nothing to do with Calvinianelection. That the word elect sometimes means 
darling or beloved, will appear evident to those who compare the following pas- 
sages : “‘Behold mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth,” Isa. xlii, 1. ‘This is 

* my belaved Sen in whum I am well pleased,” Matt. iii, 17. * 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 113 


if he had said, Think not that the election to the obedience of faith in 
Christ is confined to Judea, Pontus, or Galatia. No: God calls both 
Jews and Gentiles, even in Babylon, to believe in his Son. And as a 
proof that this calling and election are sincere, with pleasure I inform 
you that several have already believed, and formed themselves into a 
Christian Church, which saluteth you, not only as being elected with 
you to hear the Christian Gospel ; but as making their “election to so 
great salvation sure” through actual belief of “the truth as it is in 
Jesus.” Therefore I do not scruple, in every sense of the word, to 
say that they are “elected together with you,” and you may boldly con- 
sider them already as holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling.” 
A glorious proof. this that Christ has broken down the middle wall of 
partition between Jews and Gentiles; Babylon, in this respect, being as 
much elected as Jerusalem. But more of this in the next section. 

10. To conclude: off all the directions which can be given to clear 
up the doctrine of election with respect to our eternal concerns, none 
appears to me so important as the following. Carefully distinguish be- 
tween our election to run the race of faith and holiness, according to one 
or other of the Divine *dispensations; and between our election to 
receive the prize—a crown of glory. St. Paul, speaking to Christians 
’ of the first of these elections, says, “ God has chosen us that we should 
_be holy.” And our Lord, describing the second election, says, “‘ Many 
are called, but few chosen. Well done, good and faithful servant, enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord.” The former of these elections is always 
unconditional ; but the latter is always suspended upon the reasonable 
condition of persevering in the obedience of faith. 

To show the propriety and importance of the preceding directions, 
I need only apply them to the parable of the talents, which displays 
every branch of the doctrine of election. ‘The kingdom of heaven,” 
says Christ [if it be considered with respect to God’s gracious and 
righteous dispensations toward the various classes of his moral vessels 
or servants] “is as a man who called, [and, ot consequence, first freely 
chose] his own servants.” 

Observe here that every man is unconditionally chosen and called to 
serve God in his universal temple. Some may be compared to earthen 
vessels, made, chosen, and called to be useful in the court of the Gen- 
tiles, like humble Gibeonites: some to silver vessels, made, chosen, and 
called to be useful in the holy place, like pious Jews: and others te 
golden, 1. e. most precious and honourable vessels, made, chosen, and 
called to be useful in the holiest of all, like true Christians. Hence it 
appears that God has assigned to all his moral vessels their proper 
place and use in his great temple, the universe. If they are unprofit- 
able and unfit for the Master’s use, it is not because he makes them so; 
but because they received a bad taint from their parents upon the wheel 
of generation, and afterward refuse to purge themselves by means of 
the talent of light, grace, and power, which is bestowed upon them as 
the seed of regeneration, according to their respective dispensations. 

The difference that sovereign grace makes between God’s servants, or, 
if you please, between his moral vessels, is evidently asserted by St. 
- Paul, 2 Tim. 1,19, &c. “The Lord,” says he, “knoweth them that 
are his :” that is, he approves the godly, the vessels of mercy, the clean 

Vou. II. 8 . 


114 EQUAL CHECK.  [PaRT 


vessels under every dispensation. ‘Let then every one that nameth the 
name of Christ,” and who is, of consequence, under the strictest of all the 
dispensations, “ depart from iniquity: for in a great house there are not 
only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth ; and some to 
honour,* and some to dishonour. If a man purge himself from these” 
[that are to dishonour] whether he be a vessel of gold, silver, wood, or 
earth, “he shall,” according to his dispensation, “be a vessel unto honour, 
sanctified and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good 
work ;” though it should be only the work of a Gibeonite, hewing wood 
and drawing water. And if a Christianized Saul seeks to slay these 
spiritual Gibeonites in his zeal for the children of Israel, God himself 
will plead their cause: for he honours, in every dispensation, vessels that 
are clean and sanctified, according to his own decree, “Them that 
honour me, I will peculiarly honour, and they that despise me shall be 
lightly esteemed.” That is, although those that honour me should be 
only fit to be compared to wooden or earthen vessels, like the deyout 
soldiers of Cornelius, I will honour them with a place in my heayenly 
house. And were those that despise me compared to silyer vessels, 
like the sons of Eli; or to a golden vessel, like Judas; if repentance 
do not interpose, they shall be broken with a rod of iron like vessels of 
wrath ; and after “sleeping in the dust, they shall awake to the eyer- 
lasting contempt” due to their sins; it being written among the decrees_ 
of Heaven, “If any man defile” the vessel, or “ temple of God, him shall 
God destroy.” Such will be the fearful end of those, who, by their wilful 
unbelief, make themselves positively unclean vessels. “For to them 
that are unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and con- 
science are defiled.” And these vessels of just wrath and positive dis- 
honour must be carefully distinguished from those whom God compara- 
‘tively makes vessels of dishonour, by giving them fewer talents than he 
idoes to his upper servants. 

Return we now to the parable of the talents and to the several classes 
‘of servants, which St. Paul compares to several classes of vessels, 
in God’s great house below. “'To one of them” says our Lord, (to the 
‘Christian, I suppose,) according to the election of most particular, 
distinguishing grace, “he gave five talents.” 'To another, suppose the 
Jew, still according to the election of particular grace, “he gave two 
talents.” “ And to another,” suppose the heathen, according to the decree 
of general grace, “he gave one talent.” Hence it appears that God 
reprobates no man absolutely, and is no Calvinistical respecter of per- 
sons; for, adds our Lord in the parable, “he gave to every one 
according to his several ability,” or circumstances, Matt. xxy, 15. 
This first distribution of grace and privileges is previous to all works, 
and to it belong (as I have shown by parallel scriptures) those words of 


* St. Paul having guarded the doctrine of sovereign, distinguishing grace, by 
the different matter, earth, wood, silver, &c, of which the vessels are formed: 
and not making any distinction between ‘‘ vessels of dishonour” and “vessels 
of wrath,” as he does in Rom. ix, it necessarily follows, according to the 
doctrine of rewarding grace, that the expression ‘vessels to honour,” and 
“vessels to dishonour,” should not be taken here in a comparative sense, 
-as in Rom. ix; but in a positive sense; and then they answer to “ vessels 
-sanctified,” and to “‘ vessels not purged ;” expressions which occur in the context, 
_and fix the apostle’s meaning. rs 
4 


: 


: 


. 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 115 


the apostle, “The children being not yet born, neither having done any 
good or evil, that the purpose of God according to” sovereign, dis- 
tinguishing election to certain remarkable favours, “ might stand, not of 
works, but of him that calleth, it was said, The elder shall serve the 
younger—Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated,” i. e. [have pre- 
ferred Jacob to Esau, in point of family honour; and the Israelites to 
the Edomites with respect to the covenant of peculiarity. And with as 
much propriety it might be said, in point of super-angelical dignity, 
Michael the archangel have I loved, and Gabriel the angel have I hated : 
i. e. | have reprobated the latter from a degree of dignity and favour to 
which I have elected the former. 

Thus far the parable illustrates the doctrine of sovereign free grace, 
and of an unconditional election to receive and use different measures 
of grace; and thus far I walk hand in hand with Zelotes, because thus 
far he speaks as the oracles of God, except when he hints at his doctrine 
of absolute reprobation: for at such times he makes it his business to 
insinuate that there are some men to whom God never gave so much 
as one talent of saving grace, in flat opposition to that clause of the 
parable, “he gave to every one” one or two true talents at least: I say 
true, because whatever dreadful hints Zelotes may throw out to the 
contrary, I dare not allow the thought that the true Ged deals in false 
coin ; or that, because he is the God of all grace, he deals also in damning 
grace :—damning grace I call it; for in the very nature of things, all 
grace bestowed upon an absolute reprobate—upon a man hated of God 
with an everlasting hate, and given up from his mother’s womb unavoid- 
ably to sin and be damned: all grace, I say, flowing from such a repro- 
bating God to such a reprobated man is no better than a serpent, whose 
headis Calvin’s absolute reprobation and its tail Zelotes’ finished damnation. 

Zelotes, I fear, objects to the sovereign, free, distinguishing grace 
which I contend for, chiefly because it has no connection with the bound 
will, and distinguishing free wrath which characterize his opinions. 
Accordingly he soon takes his leave of me and the parable of the talents, 
the middle part of which illustrates what he calls my heresy, that is, 
the doctrine of free will. (1.) The doctrine of obedient free will, which 
our Lord secures thus :—“'Then he that had received five talents went 
and traded with the same, and made them other five talents,” &c. And, 
(2.) The doctrine of perverse free will, which Christ lays down in these 
words :—“ But he that had received one talent went and digged in the 
earth, and hid his Lord’s money,” Here Christ, for brevity’s sake, 
points out unfaithful free will in the lowest dispensation only: sloth and 
unfaithfulness being by no means necessary consequences of the least 
number of talents. For while some Christians bury their five, and some 
Jews their two talents, some heathens so improve their one talent as to 
verify our Lord’s doctrine, “The last shall be first.” 

The third part of the parable illustrates the doctrine of rewarding 
grace, or of conditional election to, and reprobation from the rewards 
with which Divine grace crowns human faithfulness. I call this election 
and this reprobation conditional, because they are entirely suspended 
upon the good or bad use which our faithful, or unfaithful free will makes 
of the talent or talents bestowed upon us by free grace; as appears by 
the rest of the parable: “ After a long time the Lord of those servants, 


116 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


cometh, and feckoneth with them,” proceeding first to the election of 
rewarding grace. “He that had received five talents came and brought 
other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: 
behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.” Here you see 
in an exemplifying glass the doctrine which Zelotes abhors, and which 
St. John recommends thus: “Beloved, if our heart condemn ps not, 
then have we confidence toward God. Herein is our love made perfect, 
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,” 1 John iii, 21; iv, 
17. His Lord [instead of driving him to hell as a poor, blind, unawakened 
creature, who never knew himself; or as a proud, self-righteous Pharisee, 
who was never convinced of sin] said unto him, “ Well done, thou good 
and faithful servant, [thou vessel of mercy,] thou hast been faithful over a 
few things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” through my merciful Gospel 
charter, and the passport of thy sincere, blood-besprinkled obedience. 

‘The servant, who through free grace and faithfulness had gained two 
talents, beside the two which distinguishing grace had given him, came 
next ; and when he had been elected into the joy of his Lord in the same 
gracious manner, the trial of the faithless heathen came on. His plea 
would almost make one think that Zelotes had instilled into him his hard 
doctrine of reprobation. He is not ashamed to preach it to Christ him- 
self. “Lord,” says he, “I knew thee, that thou art a hard man,” who 
didst contrive my reprobation from the beginning of the world, and 
gavest me only one talent of common grace, twenty of which would not 
amount to one dram of saving grace. “I knew thee,” I say, “that thou 
art an austere” master, “reaping,” or wanting to reap where thou hast 
not sowed the seed of effectual grace ; “and gathering,” or wanting to 
gather “ where thou hast not strewed” one grain of true grace; “and I 
was afraid, and went and hid thy talent,” thy ineffectual, false, common 
grace “in the earth. Lo, there thou hast that is thine. His Lord 
answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, &c, thou 
oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers,” who sometimes 
exchange to such advantage for the poor, that their “little one becomes 
a thousand.” Hadst thou made this proper use of my ‘‘ common grace,” 
as thou callest it, “at my coming I should have received mine own with « 
usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath 
ten talents: for every one that hath” to purpose, ‘ shall have abundance : 
but from him that hath not” to purpose, “shall be taken away even that 
which he hath”—his unimproved, hidden talent: ‘‘and cast ye the un- 
profitable servant into outer darkness ;” i. e. into hell: “there shall be 
weeping and ynashing of teeth,” Matt. xxv, 15, 31. Hence it appears 
that a man may be freely elected to receive one, two, or five talents— 
freely chosen to trade with them, and afterward be justly reprobated, or 
cast away into outer darkness for not improving his talent, that is, for 
not ‘‘ making his calling and election sure.” 

Zelotes, indeed, as if he were conscious that the parable of the talents 
overthrows all his doctrinal peculiarities, endeavours to explain it away 
by saying that it does not represent God’s conduct toward his people 
with respect to grace and salvation, but only with regard to paris and 
natural gifts. To this I answer, (1.) The Scriptures no where mention 
a day of account, in which God will reward and punish his servants 
according to their natural parts, exclusively of their moral actions.= 


SECOND. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 117 


(2.) The servants had all the same master. Luke xix, 38, they are all 
represented as receiving “one pound” each, to “occupy,” or trade till 
their master came. He that did not improve his pound, or talent, is 
called “ wicked” on that account. Now the non-improvement of a 
natural talent, suppose for poetry or husbandry, can never constitute a 
man “wicked ;” nothing can do this but the non-improvement of a talent 
of grace. (3.) We have as much reason to affirm that the oil of the 
virgins, mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, and the good works 
of the godly, mentioned at the end of it, were “not of a gracious nature,” 
as to assert it of the improvement of the pound, which constituted some 
of the servants “good and faithful.” (4.) It is absurd to suppose that 
Christ will ever take some men into his joy, and will command others to 
be cast into outer darkness, for improving or not improving the natural 
talent of speaking, writing, or singing in a masterly manner. (5.) The 
description of the day of judgment, that closes the chapter, is a key to 
the two preceding parables. On the one hand the door is shut against 
the foolish virgins merely for their apostasy—for having burned out all 
their oil of faith working by love, so that their “Tamps went out.” ‘The 
slothful servant is cast into outer darkness merely for not improving his 
talent of opportunity and power to believe, and to work righteousness 
according to the light of his dispensation. And the goats are sent into 
hell merely for not having done the works of faith. On the other hand, 
(considering salvation according to its second causes,) the wise virgins 
go in with the bridegroom, because their lamps are not gone out, and 
they have oil in their vessels ; the faithful servants enter into the joy of 
the Lord, because they have improved their talents; and the sheep go 
into life eternal, because they have done the works of faith. The three 
parts of that plain chapter make a threefold cord, which, I apprehend, 
Zelotes cannot break, without breaking all the rules of morality, criticism, 
and common sense. e 

I shall close my parabolic illustration of the Scripture doctrine of un- 
conditional and conditional election, by presenting Zelotes and Honestus 
with a short view of our election in Christ; that is, of our election to 
receive freely, and to use faithfully, the five talents of the Christian dis- 
pensation, that we may reap all the benefits annexed to “ making that 
high calling and election sure.” : 


is 

Blessed be the God and Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath 
blessed us with all spiritual bless- 
ings in heavenly things zn [the per- 
son and dispensation of ] Christ: 
according as he hath* chosen us [to 
believe] in him, before the founda- 
tion of the world: that [in making 
our high calling and election sure] 


Il. 

Hearken, my beloved brethren, 
hath not God chosen the poor of 
this world? [Yes, but not absolute- 
ly, for Zelotes knows that all the 
poor are not elected in his way: 
and St. James insinuates that their 
election to “the kingdom of hea- 
ven” is suspended on faith and love ; 
for he adds that] God hath chosen 


* This passage will be explained in the next section. In the merntime I desire 
the reader to take notice that the election of which St. Paul writes is not of the 
Antinomian kind; I mean, it is not Calvinian election, which insures eternal 


salvation to all fallen believers. 


That the apostle was an utter stranger to such 


a doctrine, appears from his own words to those elect Ephesians: ‘‘ Putting awav 


7 


118 


5 I. 
we should be holy and without blame 
before him in love, Eph. i, 3, 4. 

[If Zelotes be offended at my in- 
sinuating that St. Paul’s phrase “ in 
Christ” is sometimes an ellipsis— 
a short way of speaking which con- 
veys the idea of our Lord’s Gospel 
and dispensation ; I appeal to the 
reader’s candour, and to the mean- 
ing of the following texts :—“ Babes 
in Christ. Urbane, our helper in 
Christ. 'The Churches of Judea, 
which were in Christ. Baptized 
into Christ. The Mosaic veil is 
done away in Christ. In Christ 
Jesus circumcision availeth no- 
thing,” &c. Again: when St. Paul 
tells us that “his bonds in Christ 
are manifest in all the palace,” does 
he not mean the chain with which 
he was personally bound, as a 
preacher of the Christian faith? 
And would not Zelotes make him- 
self ridiculous, if he asserted that 
St. Paul’s “bonds in Christ” were 
those with which he was bound zn 
the person of Christ in the garden 
of Gethsemane 7] 

There is a remnant [of Jews, 
who believe] according to the elec- 
tion of grace [who, through sancti- 
fication of the Spirit to obedience, 
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus 
Christ, make their calling and elec- 
tion sure according to the Christian 
dispensation, 1 Pet.i,2.] The elec- 
tion [those Jews who make their 
election to the blessings of the 
Christian dispensation sure by faith 
in Christ] hath obtained it [right- 
eousness | and the rest were blinded : 


EQUAL CHECK. 


(parr 


Il. 

the poor, rich in faith, and [of con- 
sequence] heirs of the kingdom, 
which he hath promised to. them 
that love hin, [i. e. to them that 
are rich in the “ faith which works 
by love,” ] James i, 5. Know this 
also, that the Lord hath chosen to 
himself [i. e. to his rewards of 
grace and glory, not this or that 
man out of mere caprice, but] the 
man that is godly: [that is] the 
man after his own heart. (Com. 
Prayers, Psa. iv, 3; 1 Sam._ xiii, — 
14.) God hath from the beginning 
chosen you to salvation [yea, out 
of mere distinguishing grace, he 
has chosen you to partake of the 
great salvation of Christians; not 
indeed absolutely, but] through 
sanctification of the Spirit, and be- 
lief of the truth, [as it is in Jesus — 
the truth as it is revealed under the 
Christian dispensation, | 2 Thess. ii, 
13. 


Many are called [to repentance, 
yea, many are “chosen, that they 
should be holy,” Eph. i, 4,] but few 
are chosen [to receive the reward 
of perfected holiness—the reward 
of the inheritance,| Matt. xx, 16. 
Wherefore, brethren, give diligence 
to make your calling and election 
suRE: for if ye do these things, ye 
shall never fall, 2 Pet. i, 10. Put 
on, therefore, as the elect of God, 
bowels of mercies. For he shall 
have judgment without mercy, that 


lying, speak truth: let him that stole steal no more: be not drunk: let not for- 
nication or uncleanness be once named among you, &c, for this ye know, that no 


unclean person, &c, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. 


Let no 


man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things the wrath of God 
cometh upon the children of disobedience,” that is, upon the disobedient children, 
who, by their bad works, lose their inheritance in the kingdom of God. Is it not 
surprising, that when St. Paul has thus warned the Ephesians against Antino- 
mian deceptions, he should be represented as deceiving those very Ephesians first, 
by teaching them a doctrine which implies that no crimes, be they ever so atrocious, 
can depriye fallen believers of their ‘inheritance in the kingdom of Christ 2” 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 3 


fis Ir. 
[that is, the unbelieving Jews have hath showed no mercy, Col. i iii, 12 
not obtained righteousness, because James ii, 13. 
_ they sought it not by faith, but by » 
blindly opposing their Pharisaic 
works of the law to Christ and the 
humble obedience of faith,] Rom. xi, 
5, 7; ix, 32. 

If I am not mistaken, the balance of the preceding scriptures shows 
that Honestus and Zelotes are equally in the wrong: Honestus, for not 
rejoicing in free grace, in the election of grace, and in God’s power, 
love; and faithfulness, which are engaged to keep believers while they 
keep in the way of duty: and Zelotes, for corrupting the genuine doc- 
trines of grace by his doctrines of Calvinian election, necessity, and 
unconditional reprobation from eternal life. 


SECTION XIII. 


A view of St. Paul’s doctrine of election, laid down in Eph. i—That 
’ © election consists in God’s choosing, from the beginning of the world, 
that the Gentiles should now share, through faith, the blessings of 
the Gospel of Christ, together with the believing Jews, who BEFORE 
were alone the chosen nation and peculiar people of God—lIt is an 
election from the obscure dispensation of the heathens to the luminous 
dispensation of the Christians ; and not an election from a state of 
absolute ruin, to a state of finished salvation—tIt is as absurd to main- 
tain Calvinian election from Eph. i, as to support Calvinian repro- 
bation by Rom. ix— What we are to understand by the “ book of life,” 
and by the “names” written therein from the foundation of the world 
—A conclusion to the first part of this work. 


Wuew Zelotes is made ashamed of what Calvin calls “ the horrible 
decree,” he seems to give it up ;—I have nothing to do with reprobation, 
says he, my business is with election. ‘Thus he is no sooner beaten out 
of Rom. ix, than he retires behind Eph. i, where he thinks he can make 
a more honourable defence. It may not be amiss, therefore, to follow 
him there also, and to show him that he entirely mistakes the “predes- 
tination,” “ purpose,” and “ election,” mentioned in that chapter. 

The design of the apostle in his Epistle to the Ephesians is twofold. 
In the three first chapters he extols their gracious election, their free 
vocation, and the unspeakable privileges of both; and in the three last, 
' he exhorts them to walk worthy of their election and calling; warning 
them against Antinomian deceivers ; and threatening them with the loss 
of their heavenly inheritance if they followed their filthy tenets and im- 
moral example. This epistle therefore is a compendium of the New 
Testament: the former part contains a strong check to Pharisaism, or 
the doctrine of self-righteous boasters ; and the latter part a severe check 
to Antinomianism, or to the doctrine and deeds of the Nicolaitans; see 
Eph. v, 5,6; Rev. ii, 6, 15, 20. 

To be a little more explicit: in the three first chapters St. Paul en- 
deayours to impress the hearts of the Ephesians with a deep sense of 


120 : EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


God’s free grace in Christ Jesus, whereby he had compassionately called, 
and of consequence mercifully elected them, ignorant and miserable sin- 
ners of the Gentiles as they were, to partake “of all the blessings of the 
Christian dispensation. The apostle tries to inflame them with grateful 
love to Christ, for setting them on a level with his “ peculiar people, the 
Jews, to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, 
and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the [explicit] 
promises; whose were the fathers, and of whom Christ came, as con- 
cerning the flesh.” 

To prove that this is St. Paul’s design, I produce his own words, with 
short illustrations in brackets: “ Remember, [says he,] that ye were in 
time past GrenTrzxs in the flesh, called uncireumcision by the cireum- 
cision [&c, abhorred by the circumcised Jews, because you were uncir- 
cumcised heathens. Remember] that at that time ye were without [the 
knowledge of | Christ [not having so much as heard of the Messiah,] 
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, [hating the Jews, and © 
hated of them,] strangers to the covenants of promise [which God had 
made with Abraham, ‘Isaac, and Jacob,] having no [covenant] hope, and 
without [a covenant] God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus [who 
has sent us into all the world to preach the Gospel to every creaturet] ” 
Ye [Gentiles,] who were sometimes afar off, are made nigh by the blood 
of Christ : for he is our peace, who hath made orm [Jews and Gentiles] 
one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, &c, 
that he might reconcile both [Jews and Gentiles] to God, &ce, by the 
cross ; having slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace 
to you [Gentiles] who were afar off, and to them that were nigh, [that 
is, to the Jews.] For through him we sora [Jews and Gentiles] have 
an access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye [Gentiles] 
are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the [Jewish] 
saints, and of the household [or peculiar people] of Godj and are built 
upon the foundation of the [Christian] apostles, and [Jewish] prophets ; 
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone [which unites the 
Jews and Gentiles who believe, as a corner stone joins the two walls 
which meet upon it, &c.] In whom you also [Gentiles of Ephesus] are 
builded together [with us believing Jews ] for a habitation of God through 
the Spirit,” Eph. ii, 11, &e. 

The apostle explains his meaning still more clearly in the next ehap- 
ter. “For this cause,” [namely, that you might be quickened together 
with us (see Eph. ii, 5, 6, in the original,) unto Christ, that you might 
be raised up together, and placed together with us in heavenly privileges 
in or by Jesus Christ.] “For this cause, I Paul am the prisoner of Christ 
for you Gentiles; if ye have heard of the pispensaTion of the grace 
of God, which is given me to you warp: how he made known to me 
[once a Jewish bigot ] the mystery, &c, that the Gentiles should be fellow 
heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of the promise of Christ by 
the Gospel, whereof I am made a minister, &c, that I should preach 
among the Gentiles [as Peter does among the Jews] the unsearchable 
riches of Christ, &c. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribu- 
lations for you [Gentiles] which is your glory,” Eph. iii, 1-18. 

The two preceding paragraphs are two keys, which St. Paul gives to 
open his meaning with, and to make,us understand “God’s eternal pur- 


SECOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 121 


pose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, of gathering all 

ings in Christ,” by calling the Gentiles to be partakers of the Gospel 
of Christ, as well as the Jews: a “mystery” this, which had been hid 
in God from the beginning of the world, Eph. iii, 9; God having then 
purposed to take the Gentiles into the covenant of peculiarity : although, 
for particular reasons, he did it only in St. Paul’s days, and chiefly by 
his instrumentality. What pity is it then that Zelotes should cast the 
veil of his prejudices over so glaring a truth; and should avail himself 
of the apostle’s laconic style, and of our inattention to impose Calvin’s 
predestination upon us! Does not the context demonstrate that St. Paul 
speaks only of God’s predestinating and electing THE GeENTILES IN 
GENERAL (and among them the Ephesians) to share the prerogatives of 
the Christian dispensation? Is it not evident, that as the unbelieving 
Jews boasted much of their being saved by the work of circumcision, 
through Abraham, St. Paul keeps the believing Gentiles humble, by re- 
minding them that “by grace they were saved—{that is, made partakers 
of the great salvation of Christians] through faith : and that not of them- 
selves, [nor of their forefathers,] it was the gift of God, not of works,” 
not of circumcision or Mosaic ceremonies, “lest any of them should 
boast” like the Jews, who, by their fatal glorying in Abraham and in 
themselves, had hardened their hearts against Christ’s Gospel, and 
brought God’s curse upon their Church and nation? In a word, is it not 
clear that St. Paul no more speaks of God’s having predestinated this 
Englishman, or that man of Ephesus to be absolutely saved; and this 
Scotch woman, or that Ephesian widow to be absolutely damned, than he 
has absolutely predestinated Honestus to be mufti, and Zelotes to be pope? 

This being premised, I present the reader with what appears to me to 
be the genuine sense of the chapter, upon which Zelotes founds his doc- 
trine of an absolute, particular, and personal ‘election of some men to 
eternal life glory. << Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us,” Jews and Gentiles, who do not put 
the word of his grace from us, and reject his gracious counsel against 
ourselves “ with all spiritual blessings and heavenly” things “ in Christ : 
according as he hath chosen us,” Jews and Gentiles, “‘ in Aim before the 
foundation of the world, that we,” Jews and Gentiles, “should be holy, 
and without blame before him in love,” as all Christians ought to be: 
“having predestinated us,” Jews and Gentiles, “unto the adoption of 
children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of 
his will,—by which he hath made both” Jews and Gentiles “onz, and 
hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; making in 
himself of twain,” i. e. Jews and Gentiles, “ one new man,” i. e. one new 
ecclesiastical body, which is at unity in itself, though it be composed of 
Jews and Gentiles, who were before supposed to be absolutely irrecon- 
cilable, Eph. i, 14. And this he hath done “to the praise of the glory 
of his grace, wherein he hath made us,” Jews and Gentiles, equally ac- 
cepted in the Beloved ; in whom we,” Jews and Gentiles, “ have redemp- 
tion through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of 
his grace: wherein he hath abounded to us,” Jews and Gentiles, “in 
all wisdom and prudence ; having made known unto us,” Jews and Gen- 
tiles, “ the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he 
hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times,” 


122 EQUAL CHECK. [part 


i. e. under his last dispensation, which is the Chena “he might gather 
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven,” 1. e. 
angels and glorified saints, “and which are on earth,” i. e. Jews and 
Gentiles, “even in Him,” who is the head of all: “in whom also we,” 
Jews and Gentiles, “have obtained,” through faith, “a common inherit- 
ance, being” equally “ predestinated” to share the blessings of the Chris- 
tian dispensation, “according to the purpose of Him who worketh all 
things after the counsel of his own” gracious “ will: that we,” Jews, 
“who First trusted in Christ,” (for the rrrsr Gospel offer was always 
made to the Jews, and the rirst Christian Church was entirely composed 
of Jews, compare Acts ii, 5, with Acts ui, 26, and Acts xiii, 46,)—* that 
we,” Jews, I say, “should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted 
in Christ ; in whom ye,” Gentiles, “also trusted, after that ye heard the 
word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation; in whom also, mi¢reutavreg, 
having believed, ye were sealed” as well as we “ with that Holy Spirit 
of promise, which is the earnest of our” common “ inheritance, &c. 
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, &c, cease 
not to give thanks for you, making mention of you m my prayers; that, 
&c, ye may know what is the hope of his calling” of you Gentiles, “ and 
what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints :” i. e. in them 
that “obey the heavenly callin whether they be Jews or Gentiles, 
Eph. i, 3-18. 

This easy exposition is likewise confirmed by the beginning of the 
next chapter. “And you,” Gentiles, “who were dead in trespasses 
and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to, &e, the spirit 
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom we 
all,” Jews and Gentiles, “had our conversation in time past,” &c, see 
Rom. i, ii. “You,” I say, and us, “God, who is rich in mercy” 
toward all, “for his great love wherewith he loved us,’ Jews and 
Gentiles, “hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye 
are saved” through faith as well as we: that is, ye are sayed by 
the free grace of God in Christ, as the first cause; and by your 
believing the Gospel of Christ, which is GRacE anD TRUTH, John i, 17, 
as the second cause. “For, through him, we Boru,” Jews and Gen- 
tiles, “ have access by one Spirit unto the Father,” Eph. ii, 1-5, 18. 


If Zelotes doubts yet whether the apostle treats in this epistle of the | 


predestination and election of the Gentiles, to partake of the blessings of 
Christianity, together with the Jews; let him consider what the com- 
mentators of his own party have candidly said of the design of the epis- 
tle; and his good sense will soon make him see the scope of the parts 
which I have produced. 

I appeal first to Diodati, one of Calvin’s successors, who opens his 
exposition by these words: “The summary of it [the Epistle to the 
Ephesians] is that he [the apostle] gives God thanks for the infinite ben- 
efit of eternal salvation and redemption in Christ, communicated out of 
mere grace and election through faith in the Gospel, to the apostle first, 
and his companions of the Jewish nation ; then afterward to the Ephe- 
sians, who were Gentiles, &c, by the ministry of St. Paul appomted by 
God to preach to the Gentiles the mystery of their calling im grace, 
which was before unknown to the world.” Burkitt says the same 
thing in fewer words: “ This excellent epistle Divinely sets forth, &o 


~~ 


. 


SEUOND.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 123 


the marvellous dispensation of God to the Gentiles in revealing Christ 
to rem.” Mr. Henry touches thus upon the truth which I endeavour: 
to clear up: “In the former part [of the epistle] he [St. Paul] repre- 
sents the great privilege of the Ephesians, who, being in time past idol- 
atrous HEATHENS, were now converted [and of consequence chosen and 
called] to Christianity, and received into covenant with God.” And 
again: “ This epistle has much of common concernment to all Chris- 
tians; especially to all who, having been Gentiles, &c, were converted 
to Christianity.” See one more flash of truth breaking out of a Cal- 
vinistic cloud. Pool, speaking of the mystery which God had made 
known to Paul by revelation, raises this objection after Estius: “ But 
the mystery of the calling [and consequently of the election] of the 
Gentiles, of which it is evident the apostle speaks, was not unknown to 
the prophets,” &c. Why then does he say that tt was not made known ? 
and Pool answers, That the prophets knew not explicitly, “quod Gen- 
tiles pares essent Judeis quoad consortium gratie Dei,”—* that 
the Gentiles should be put on a level with the Jews, with respect to a 
COMMON INTEREST in God’s grace.” (Syn. Crit. on Eph. iii, 5.) 

If Zelotes do not regard the preceding testimonies, let him at least 
believe St. Paul himself, who, explicitly speaking of the calling and 
election of the Gentiles, which he names “the mystery of Christ,” 
mentions his having “wrote about it afore in few words; whereby 
(adds he) when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in that mys- 
tery,” Eph. iu, 3! Hence it is evident, that the apostle, in the preced- 
ing part of the epistle, treats of God’s electing the Gentiles to the pre- 
rogatives of Christianity: an election this by which they are admitted 
to share in privileges, which the apostles themselves, for a considerable 
time after the day of pentecost, durst not offer to any but their own 
countrymen, as appears by Acts x, xi ;—in privileges, which multitudes 
of Jewish converts would never allow the believing Gentiles to enjoy ; 
tormenting them with Judaism, and saying, “Except ye be circum- 
cised,” i. e. except ye turn Jews as well as Christians, “ye cannot be 
saved.” Compare Acts xv, with the Epistle to the Galatians. But 
what has this electicn from Gentilism to Christianity—this “ abolishing 
the enmity” between Jews and Gentiles, “even the law of command- 
ments, contained in Mosaic ordinances, for to make of twain one new 
man,” to make of Jews and Gentiles “one new chosen nation, and 


peculiar people,” called Christians ;—what has such an election, I say, 


to do with the election maintained by Zelotes?) Who does not see that 
the general election of all the Gentiles from the obscure dispensation of 
the heathens, to the luminous dispensation of the Christians, (as the 
sound of the Gospel trump shall gradually reach them,) is the very 
reverse of Zelotes’ particular election? an election by which (if we 
believe him) God only tithes (if I may so speak) the damned world of 
the Gentiles ; absolutely setting apart for himself a dozen people, if so 
many, in an English village; half a dozen, it may be, in a Scotch dis- 
trict ; and a less number, perhaps, in an Irish hamlet; Calvinistically 
passing by the rest of their neighbours ; that is, absolutely giving them 
up to necessary sin and unavoidable damnation : binding them fast with 
the chain of Adam’s unatoned sin; and, to make sure work, sealing 
them with the seal of his free wrath, even before the fall of Adam: for 


124 EQUAL CHECK. [part 


if we may credit Zelotes, this world was made arrer the decree 
by which God secured the commission of Adam’s sin, and the damna. 
tion of his reprobate posterity. ; 
From the preceding observations I draw the following inference :— 
Seldom did the perverter of truth play a bolder and more ar 
game than when he transformed himself into an angel of light, and 
produced Rom. ix, and Eph. i, as demonstrations of the truth of 
Calvinian reprobation and election. St. Paul ‘maintains, in Rom. ix, 
that the Jews, as a circumcised nation, are rejected from the covenant 
of peculiarity ; that God has an indubitable right to extend to whom he 
pleases’ the peculiar mercy which he before confined to the circum. 
cised race ; and that he now, according to the ancient purpose of his 
grace, extends that mercy to the Gentiles, i. e. to all other nations, 
among which, of consequence, the Gospel of Christ gradually spreads, 
Therefore, insinuates Zelotes, God has absolutely given over to neces- 


sary sin and certain damnation (it may be) the best half of the English, | 


Scotch, and Irish. These poor roprobates, if we believe his doctrines 
of grace, were unconditionally cast away, not only from their mother’s 
womb, but also from the time that He, who “tasted death for every 
man,” forbade all his wounds to pour forth one single drop of blood for 
them. Nay, they were from all eternity intentionally made to be 
necessarily “vessels of wrath” to all eternity. But in the name of 
wisdom I ask, what has Zelotes’ conclusion’ to do with St. Paul’s 
premises? Has the one any more agreement with the other, than 
kindness with cruelty, Christ with Moloch, and sense with nonsense? 
Again :— 

In Eph. i, the apostle “makes known” to the Ephesians “ the mys- 
tery of God’s will, who purposed in himself, predestinated, or resolved, 
before the foundation of the world, that, in the dispensation of the fulness 
of times, he would gather together in one all things in Christ,” and call 
the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, to partake of the “unsearchable 
riches of Christ” by faith. But Zelotes, instead of gladdening the hearts 
of his countrymen by the Gospel news of this extensive grace, and gene- 
ral election of the Gentiles, takes occasion from it to confine redemption, 
to preach narrow grace, and to insinuate the personal Calvinistie elec. 
tion of some of’ his neighbours. Suppose Peter Penitent, Martha For- 
ward, and Matthew Fulsome : an election this which is inseparable from 
the personal, absolute, eternal reprobation of his other neighbours : 
suppose John Endeavour, Thomas Doubter, George Honest, and James 
Worker, to say nothing of Miss Wanton, Mr. Cheat, Sarah Cannibal, 
and Samuel Hottentot. For it is evident that if none of Zelotes’ next 
neighbours are in “the book of life” but the three first mentioned ; if 
* those three can never be put out of the book, sin they ever so grievous- 


4 


ly ; and not one of the others can possibly be put in, live they ever so . 


righteously—it is evident, I say, upon this footing, that the salvation of 


some of Zelotes’ neighbours, and the damnation of all the rest, are ab- — 


solutely necessary ; or, to speak his own language, absolutely “ finished.” 
Thus the gracious election of the Gentiles, which filled St. Paul’s soul 
with transports of grateful joy, and would be a perpetual spring of con- 
solation to us, European Gentiles, if it were preached in a Scriptural 


manner :—this gracious election, I say, becomes, by Zelotes’ mistake, , 


hi 


a 


SECOND.] ’ SCRIPTURE SCALES. 125 
the source of all the presumptuous comforts which flow from Calvin’s 
luscious, Antinomian election; and of all the tormenting fears which 
arise from his severe, Pharisaic reprobation. 

Having just mentioned “the book of life,” so triumphantly produced 
by Zelotes, it may not be amiss to hear what he and his antagonist Ho- 
nestus think about it. Throw we then their partial sentiments into the 


Scripture Scales, and by balancing them according to the method of the 


sanctuary, let us see the meaning of that mysterious expression. 
Il 


Help, &c, my fellow labourers, 
whose names are written in the book 
of life, Phil. iv, 3. All that dwell 
on the earth, whose names are not 
written in the book of life of the 
Lamb, shall worship him [the 
beast, | Rev. xvii, 8. Whose names 
were not written in the book of life 
from the foundation of the world, 
Rey. xvii, 8. Whosoever worketh 
abomination, &c, shall in no wise 
enter into it, [the city of God,] but 
they which are written in the 
Lamb’s book of life, Rev. xvi, 27. 
And whosoever was not found writ- 
ten in the Lamb’s book of life, was 
cast into the lake of fire, Rev. xx, 
15. At that time thy people shall 
be delivered, every one that shall 
be found written in the book, Dan. 


Another book was opened, which 
is the book of life: and the dead 
were judged out of those things 
which were written in the books 
according to their works, Rey. xx, 
12. If thou wilt not forgive, blot 
me, I pray thee, out of thy book 
which thou hast written [from the 
foundation of the world.} And the 
Lord said to Moses, Whosoever 
hath sinned against me, him will I 
blot out of my book, [a sure proof 
this that he was before in the book, | 
Ezek. xxxii, 32, 33. Let them 
[persecutors ] be blotted out of the 
book* of life, Psa. xix, 28. They 
that feared the Lord spake often 
one to another, and the Lord heard 
it, and a book of remembrance was 
written before him, for them that 


feared the Lord: and they shall be 
mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in 
that day when ] make up my jewels, Mal. ii, 16. I will not blot out 
his name [the name of him that overcometh] out of the book of life, 
Rey. iii, 5. If any man shall take away from the words of, &c, this 
prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, Rey. 
xxii, 19. ' 

The balance of these scriptures evidently shows: (1.) That from the 
fotndation of the world, God decreed to reward the righteous with eter- 
nal life. (2.) That, to show us the cer/ainty of this decree, the sacred 
writers, by a striking, oriental metaphor, represent it as “ written in a 
book,” which they call “the book of life.” (3.) That to carry on the 
allegory, the names of the righteous are said to be written in that book, 
and the names of the wicked not to be found in it; while the names of 
~ apostates are said to be “blotted out of it.” (4.) That the names writ- 
‘ten in this metaphorical “book of life” (if I may use the expression) 
are to be understood of natures, properties, and characters; in the sense 

in which Isaiah says of Christ, «« His Name shall be called Wonderful, 
Counsellor, and Prince of Peace ;” or, in the sense in which God pro- 


xii, 1. 


* I take the liberty to say ‘the hook of life,” and not ‘the book of the liv- 
ing,” because our translators themselves, Gen. ii, 7, have rendered the very same 
' word ‘‘the breath of life,” and not ‘‘ the breath of the lixing.” 


> 


126 EQUAL CHECK. [PART SECOND. 


claimed his name to Moses; calling himself merciful, gracious, and 
long suffering.. Whence it follows, that the “names written in the book 
of life from the foundation of the world are not Matthew Fulsome, Sa- 
rah Forward, or William Fanciful; but True Penitent, Obedient Be- 
liever, Good Servant, or “ Faithful unto Death.” And lastly, that it is 
as absurd to take this metaphor of the “book of life” literally, as to 
suppose that all David’s hairs shall be glorified, and his tears literally 
bottled up in heaven, because it is said, “’The very hairs of your head 
are numbered. All my members were written in thy book. Put thou 
my tears into thy bottle; are they not written in thy book 7” 

If Zelotes and Honestus condescend to weigh the preceding observa- 
tions, their prejudices will, I hope, gradually subside ; and while the 
one sends back to Geneva the false, intoxicating election recommended 
by Calvin, the other will bring us over from Ephesus the true, comfort- 


able election maintained by St. Paul. That in the meantime we may. 
all be thankful for our evangelical calling, improve our Gospel privileges, | 


make our Scriptural election sure, and, as the apostle writes to the 
Ephesians, “‘ walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called,” is 
the ardent wish of my soul, which I canmot express in words more pro- 
per than those which I have just used in “receiving a child into the 
congregation of Christ’s flock, and incorporating him into God’s holy 
Church :—Heavenly Father, we give thee humble thanks, that thou 
hast vouchsafed to call us [and of consequence to choose us first] to 
the knowledge of thy grace and faith in thee. Increase this knowledge, 
and confirm this faith in us evermore ; that we may receive the fulness 
of thy grace, live the rest of our life according to this beginning, con- 
tinue Christ’s faithful soldiers to our lives’ end, and ever remain in the 
number of God’s faithful and elect children, through Jesus Cast our 
Lord.” (Office of Baptism.) 

This truly Christian prayer shall conclude this section, and the first 
part of the Scripture Scales. Zelotes and Honestus have at this time 
given one another as much truth as they can well stand under. In a 
few days their strength will be recovered; they will meet again to fight 
it out, each from his scale: and when they shall have spent all their 
ammunition, they will, I hope, shake hands and be friends. But if they 
should be obstinate, and still jostle, instead of embracing each other, we 
will charge the peace. “ When we are for a Scriptural peace, if they 
still prepare themselves for battle,” we will bind them with all the cords 
we can borrow from reason, revelation, and experience. And if they 
then will not be quiet and agree, by a new kind of a metamorphose we 
will change them into scales; we will tie them,to the solid beam of 
truth, and expose them in booksellers’ shops, where they shall hang in 
logical chains, an eye-sore to bigots,—a terror to doctrinal clippers, 
who openly diminish the coin of the Church,—a comfort to those who 
are persecuted for truth and righteousness’ sake, an encouragement to 
those who, like their Master, equally hate the doctrine of the Nicolai- 
tans, and that of the Pharisees,—a new cuxck to those who spoil all by 
overdoing,—and a contrivance useful, I hope, to novices, and to unwary 
professors, who, through an excess of simplicity, or for want of scales, 
frequently take of masters in Israel a bare half shekel for “ the full 
shekel of the sanctuary.” 


ZELOTES AND HONESTUS RECONCILED: 


OR, 
THE THIRD PART 


AN EQUAL CHECK 


TO 


PHARISAISM AND ANTINOMIANISM: 


BEING THE SECOND PART 


OF THE 


SCRIPTURE SCALES 


TO WEIGH THE GOLD OF GOSPEL TRUTH, TO BALANCE A MULTITUDE OF OPPOSITE 
SCRIPTURES, TO PROVE THE GOSPEL MARRIAGE OF FREE GRACE AND FREE 
WILL, AND RESTORE PRIMITIVE HARMONY TO THE GOSPEL OF THE DAY. 


St non est Dei gratia, gkomodo salvat mundum? Si non est liberum arbitrium, quomod 
judicat mundum?—Aug. 


PREFACE 


TO THE THIRD PART OF AN EQUAL CHECK. 


The reconciler invites the contending parties to end the controversy; and m 
order to this he beseeches them not to involve the question in clouds of 
evasive cavils or personal reflections ; but to come to the point, and break, 
of they can, either the one or the other of his Scripture Scales ; and if 
they cannot, to admit them both, and by that means to give glory to God 
and the truth, and be reconciled to all the Gospel, and to one another. 


Berne fully persuaded that Christianity suffers greatly by the opposite 
mistakes of the mere Solifidians and of the mere moralists, we embrace 
the truths and reject the errors which are maintained by these contrary 
parties. For by equally admitting the doctrines of grace and the doc- 
trines of justice ;—by equally contending for faith and for morality, we 
adopt what is truly excellent in each system; we reconcile Zelotes and 
Honestus ; we bear our testimony against their contentious partiality ; 
and, to the best of our knowledge, we maintain the whole truth as it is 
in Jesus. If we are mistaken, we shall be thankful to those who will 
set us right. Plain scriptures, close arguments, and friendly expostula- 
tions are the weapons we choose. We humbly hope that the unpreju- 
diced reader will find no other in these pages: and to engage our oppo- 
nents to use such only, we present to them the following petition :— 

For the sake of candour, of truth, of peace,—for the reader’s sake ; 
and above all, for the sake of Christ, and the honour of Christianity ;— 
whoever ye are that shall next enter the lists against us, do not wire- 
draw the controversy by uncharitably attacking our persons, and 
absurdly judging our spirits, instead of weighing our arguments and 
considering the scriptures which we produce. Nor pass over fifty solid 
reasons, and a hundred plain passages, to cayil about non-essentials, and 
to lay the stress of your answer upon mistakes which do not affect the 
strength of the cause, and which we are ready to correct as soon as they 
shall be pointed out. 

Keep close to the question: do not divert the reader’s mind by start- 
ing from the point in hand upon the most frivolous occasions ; nor raise 
dust to obscure what is to be cleared up. An example will illustrate 

my meaning: Mr. Sellon, in vimdicating the Church of England from 

_ the charge of Calvinism, observes, that her catechism is, quite anti- 

Calvinistic, and that we ought to judge of her doctrine by her own cate. 
Vor. II. 9 


130 PREFACE TO THE THIRD PART 


chism, and not by Ponet’s Calvinian catechism, which poor young King 
Edward was prevailed upon to recommend some time after the establish. 
ment of our Church. Mr. Toplady, in his Historie Proof, instead of 
considering the question, which is, Whether it is not fitter to gather the 
doctrine of our Church from her own anti-Calyinian catechism than 
from Ponet’s Calvinian catechism; Mr. Toplady, I say, in his answer to 
Mr. Sellon, fastens upon the phrase poor young King Edward, and 
works it to such a degree, that he raises from it clouds of shining dust 
and pillars of black smoke ; filling, if I remember right, a whole section 
with the praises of King Edward, and with reflections upon Mr. Sellon. 
And, in his bright cloud of praise, and dark cloud of dispraise, the ques- 


tion is so entirely lost, that I doubt if one in a hundred of his readers 


has the least idea of it after reading two or three of the many pages 
which he has written on this head. By such means as these it is that 


he has made a ten’ or twelve shilling book, in which the Church of © 


England is condemned to wear the badge of the Church of Geneva. 
And the Calvinists conclude Mr. Toplady has proved that she is bound 
to wear it; for they have paid dear forthe proof. 

That very gentleman, if fame is. to be credited, has some thoughts 
of attacking the Checks. If he favour me with just remarks upon my 
mistakes (for I have probably made more than one ; though I hope none 
of a capital nature) he shall have my sincere thanks: but if he inyolve 
the question in clouds of personal reflections and of idle digressions, he 
will only give me an opportunity of initiating the public more and more 
unto the mysteries of Logica Genevensis. I therefore intreat him, if he 
think me worthy of his notice, to remember that the capital questions— 
the questions on which the fall of the Calvyinian, or of the anti-Calvinian 
doctrines of grace turn, are not whether I am a fool and a kmaye; and 
whether I have made some mistakes in attacking Antinomianism ; but 
whether those mistakes affect the truth of the anti-Solifidian and anti- 
Pharisaic Gospel which we defend: whether the two Gospel axioms are 
not equally true: whether our second Scale is not as Scriptural as the 
first: whether the doctrines of justice and obedience are not as important 
in their places as the doctrines of grace and mercy: whether the plan 
of reconciliation laid down,in section iv, and the marriage of free grace 
and free will, described in section xi, are not truly evangelical : whether 
God can judge the world in righteousness and wisdom, if man be not a 
free, unnecessitated agent : whether the justification of obedient believers, 
by the works oF rarru, is not as Scriptural as the justification of sinners 
by rarru itself: whether the eternal salvation of adults is not of remu- 
nerative justice as well as of free grace: whether that salvation does 


not secondarily depend on the evangelical, derived worthiness of obe-— 


dient, persevering believers ; as it primarily depends on the original and 


’ 


; 


i 


, 


OF AN EQUAL CHECK. 131 


proper merits of our atoning and interceding Redeemer: whether man 
is in a state of probation ; or, if you please, whether the Calvinian doc- 
trines of finished salvation and finished damnation are true: whether 
there is not a day of initial salvatien for all mankind, according to - 
various dispensations of Divine grace: whether Christ did not taste 
death for every man, and purchase a day of initial redemption and 
salvation for all sinners, and a day of etemal redemption and salvation 
for all persevering believers: whether all the sins of real apostates, or 
foully fallen believers, shall so work for their good, that none of them 
shall ever be damned for any crime he shall commit: whether they 
shall all sing louder in heaven for their greatest falls on earth: whether 
our absolute, personal reprobation from eternal life is of God’s free 
wrath through the decreed, necessary sm of Adam; or of God’s just 
wrath through our own obstinate, avoidable perseverance in sin: whether 
our doctrines of non-necessitating grace and of just wrath do not exalt 
all the Divine perfections; and whether the Calvinian doctrines of 
necessitating grace and free wrath do not pour contempt upon all the 
attributes of God, his sovereignty not excepted. 

These are the important questions which I have principally debated 
with the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Shirley, Richard Hill, Esq., the Rev. Mr. 
Hill, the Rev. Mr. Berridge, and the Rev. Mr. Toplady. Some less 
essential collateral questions I have touched upon, such asy Whether 


Judas was an absolutely graceless hypocrite, when our Lord raised him 


to apostolic honours: whether some of the most judicious Calvinists have 
not, at times, done justice to the doctrine of free will and co-operation,* 

&c. These, and the like questions, I call collateral, because they are 
only occasionally brought nn; and because the walls which defend our 
doctrines of grace stand firm without them. We hope, therefore, that 
if Mr. Toplady, and the other divines who defend the ramparts of mys- 
tical Geneva, should ever attack the Checks, they will direct their main 


* The Rey. Mr. Whitefield, in his answer to the bishop of London’s Pastoral 
Letter, says, ‘“ That prayer is not the single work of the Spirit, without any co- 


_ operation of our own, I readily confess. Who ever affirmed that there was no co- 


operation of our own minds, together with the impulse of the Spirit of God?” 
Now, that many rest short of salvation, merely\by not co-operating with the 
Spirit’s impulse, is evident, if we may credit these words of the reverend author: 
“« There is a great difference between good desires and good habits. Many have 
the one who never attain to the other. Many (through the Spirit’s impulse) have 
good desires to-subdue sin; and yet restings(through want of co-operation) in 
‘those good desires, sin has always the dominion over them.” (Whitefiel@’s Works, 
vol. iv, pages 7,11.) Mr. Whitefield grants, in these two passages, all that I con- 


3 tend for in these pages respecting the doctrine of our concurrence or co-operation 


- 


with the Spirit of free grace, that is, respecting our doctrine of free will; and yet 
gis warmest admirers will probably be my warmest opposers. But why? Be. 
‘cause I aim at (what Mr. Whitefield sometimes overlooked) consistency. 


132 PREFACE TO THE THIRD PART 


batteries against our towers, and not against some insignificant part of 
the scaffolding, which we could entirely take down, without endangering 


our Jerusalem in the least. Should they refuse to grant our reasonable . 


request ; should they take up the pen to perplex, and not to solve the 
question ; to blacken our character, and not to illustrate the obscure parts 
of the truth ; they must give us leave to look upon their controversial 
attempt as an evasive show of defence, contrived to keep a defenceless, 
tottering error upon its legs, before an injudicious, bigoted populace. 

If you will do us and the public justice, come to close quarters, and 
put an end to the controversy by candidly receiving our Scripture Scales, 
or by plainly showing that they are false. Our doctrine entirely depends 
upon the two Gospel axioms, and their necessary consequences, which 
now hang out to public view in our Gospel balances. Nothing there- 


fore can be more easy than to point out our error, if our system be ~ 


erroneous. But if our Scales be just, if our doctrines of grace and 


justice—of free grace and free will be true; it is evident that the Soli- 
fidians and the moralists are both in the wrong, and that we are, upon 
the whole, in the right. I say upon the whole, because insignificant mis- 
takes can no more affect the strength of our cause, than a cracked 
slate or a broken pane can affect the solidity of a palace, which is 
firmly built upon a rock. 

Therefore if you are an admirer of Zelotes, and a Solifidian opposer 
of free will, of the law of liberty, and of the remunerative justification 
of a believer by the works of faith, raise no dust; candidly give up 
Antinomianism ; break the two pillars on which it stands,—necessitating 
free grace and forcible free wrath ; or prove, if you can, that our second 
Scale, which is directly contrary to your doctrines of grace, is irrational, 
and that we have forged or misquoted the passages which compose it. 
But if you are a follower of Honestus, and a neglecter of free grace and 
salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, be a candid and honest disputant. 
Come at once to the grand question; and terminate the controversy, 
either by receiving our first Scale, which is directly contrary to your 
scheme of doctrine; or by proving that this Scale is directly contrary 
to reason and Scripture, and that we have misquoted or mistaken most 
of the passages which enter into its composition. I say most, though I 
could say all; for if only two passages, properly taken in connection 
with the context, the avowed doctrine of a sacred writer, and the general 
drift of the Scriptures ;—if only two such passages, I say, fairly and 
truly support each section of our Scripture Scales, they hang firmly, 
and can no more, upon the whole, be invalidated than the Scripture 
itself, which, as our Lord informs us, “ cannot be broken,” John x, 35. 

I take the Searcher of hearts, and my judicious, unprejudiced readers 
to witness, that through the whole of this controversy, far from conceal- 


OF AN EQUAL CHECK. 13838 


ing the most plausible objections, or avoiding the strongest arguments 
which are, or may be advanced against our reconciling doctrine, I have 
carefully searched them out, and endeavoured to encounter them as 
openly as David did Goliah. Had our opponents followed this method, 
I doubt not but the controversy would have ended long ago in the 
destruction of our prejudices, and in the rectifying of our mistakes. O, 
if we preferred the unspeakable pleasure of finding out the truth to the 
pitiful honour of pleasing a party, or of vindicating our own mistakes, 
how soon would the useful fan of Scriptural, logical, and brotherly con- 
troversy “ purge the floor” of the Church! How soon would the light 
of truth and the flame of love “burn the chaff” of error and the thorns 
of prejudice “with fire unquenchable!” May the past triumphs of 
bigotry suffice! and instead of sacrificing any more to that detestable 
‘dol, may we all henceforth do whatever lies in us to hasten a general 
reconciliation, that we may all share together in the choicest blessings 
which God can bestow upon his peculiar people ;—the Spirit of pure, 
evangelical truth, and of fervent, brotherly love. 


Mapetey, March 30, 1775. 


AN EXPLANATION 


or 


: SOME TERMS USED IN THESE SHEETS. 


——_ 


Tur word Solifidian is defined, and the characters of Zelotes, Hones. 
tus, and Lorenzo, are drawn in the advertisement prefixed to the first 
part of this work. It is proper to explain here a few more words or cha- 
racters. 

Puarisaism is the religion of a Pharisee. a, 

A Puarisex is a loose or strict professor of natural or revealed 
religion, who so depends upon the system of religion which he has adopted, 
or upon his attachment to the school or Church he belongs to ; (whether ° 
it be the school of Plato, Confucius, or Socinus; whether it be the 
Church of Jerusalem, Rome, England, or Scotland ;) who lays such a 
stress on his religious or moral duties, and has so good an opinion of 
his present harmlessness and obedience, or of his future reformation and 
good works, as to overlook his natural impotence and guilt, and to be in- 
sensible of the need and happiness of “ being justified freely [as a sinner] 
by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ,” Rom. 
iil, 24. You may know him: (1.) By his contempt of, or coldness for 
the Redeemer and his free grace. (2.) By the antichristian confidence 
which he reposes in his best endeavours, and in the self-righteous ex- 
ertions of his own free will. Or, (3.) By the jests he passes upon, or the 
indifference he betrays for the convincing, comforting, assisting, and 
sanctifying influences of God’s Holy Spirit. 

Awnrtnomiantism is the religion of an Antinomian. 

An ANTINOMIAN is a professor of Christianity, who is antinomos, 
against the law of Christ, as well as against the law of Moses. He 
allows Christ’s law to be a rule of life, but not a rule of judgment for. 
believers, and thus he destroys that law ata stroke, as a law; it being 
evident that a rule by the personal observance or non-observance of 

» which Christ’s subjects can never be acquitted or condemned, is not a 
law for them. Hence he asserts that Christians shall no more be jus- 
tified before God by their personal obedience to the law of Christ, than 
by their personal obedience to the ceremonial law of Moses. Nay, he 
believes that the best Christians perpetually break Christ’s law; that 
nobody ever kept it but Christ himself ; and that we shall be justified or 
condemned before God, in the great day; not as we shall personally be 
found to have finally kept or finally broken Christ’s law, but as God 
shall be found to have, before the foundation of the world, arbitrarily laid, 
or not laid to our account, the merit of Christ’s keeping his own law. 
Thus he hopes to stand in the great day, merely by what he calls 
“ Christ’s imputed righteousness ;” excluding with abhorrence, from our 
final justification, the evangelical worthmess of our own personal, 


AN EXPLANATION, ETC. 135 


sincere obedience of repentance and faith ;—a precious obedience this, 
which he calls “dung, dross, and filthy rags:” just as if it were the 
insincere obedience of self-righteous pride, and Pharisaic hypocrisy. 
Nevertheless, though he thus excludes the evangelical, derived worthi- 
ness of the works of faith from our eternal justification and salvation, he 
does good works, if he is in other respects a good man. Nay, in 
this case, he piques himself on doing them; thinking he is peculiarly 
obliged to make people believe that, immoral as his sentiments are, 
they draw after them the greatest benevolence and the strictest morality. 
But Fulsome shows the contrary. 

Futsome represents a consistent Antinomian—that is, one who is 
such in practice as well as in theory. He warmly espouses Zelotes’ 
doctrine of fimshed salvation; believing that, before the foundation of 
the world, we were all Calvinistically, 1.e. personally ordained to eternal 
life in Christ, or eternal death in Adam, without the least respect to 
our own works, that is, to our own tempers and conduct. Hence 
he draws this just inference: “If Christ never died for me, and I am 
Calvinistically reprobated, my best endeavours to be finally justified, 
and eternally saved, will never alter the decree of reprobation, which 
Was made against me from all eternity. On the other hand, if I am 
Calvinistically elected, and if Christ absolutely secured, yea, finished 
“my eternal salvation on the cross, no sins can ever blot my name out of 
the book of life. God, in the day of his almighty power, will irresisti- 
bly convert or reconvert my soul; and then the greater my crimes shall 
have been, the more they will set off Divine mercy and power in for- 
giving and turning such a sinner as me: and I shall only sing in hea- 
ven louder than less sinners will have cause to do.” Thus reasons 
Fulsome ; and, like a wise man, he is determined, if he be an abso- 
lute REPROBATE, to have what pleasure he can before God pulls him 
down to hell in the day of his power; or, if he be an absolute nLxuct, 
he thinks it reasonable comfortably to wait for “the day of God’s power,” 
in which day he shall be irresistibly turned, and absolutely fitted to sing 
louder in heaven the praises of Calvinistically distinguishing love :—a 
love this, which (if the Antinomian Gospel of the day be true) eternally, 
_ justifies the chief of sinners, without any personal or inherent worthiness. 

IntrIAL SALVATION is a phrase which sometimes occurs in these 
sheets. The plain reader is desired to understand by it, salvation 
begun, or}; an inferior state of acceptance and present salvation. In 
this state sinners are actually saved from hell, admitted to a degree of 
favour, and graciously entrusted with one or more talents of grace, that is, 
of means, power, and ability “to work out their own [eternal] salvation,” 
in due subordination to God, who, consistently with our liberty, “ works 
in us both to will and to do,” according to the dispensation of the hea- 
thens, Jews, or Christians, “of his good pleasure.” 

By the Evecrion or crace, understand the free, and merely 
gratuitous choice which God (as a wise and sovereign benefactor) 
arbitrarily makes of this, that, or the other man, to bestow upon him one, 
two, or five talents of free grace. 

Opposed to this election, you have an ABSOLUTE REPROBATION which 
does not draw damnation after it, but only rejection from a superior 
number of talents. In this sense God reprobated Enoch and David ; 


136 AN EXPLANATION, ETC. 


Enoch with respect to the peculiar blessings of Judaism; and David 
with regard to the still more peculiar blessings of Christianity. But 
although neither of them had a share in the election of God’s most 
peculiar grace; that is, although neither was chosen and called to the 
blessings of Christianity, their lot was never cast with those imaginary 
“poor creatures,” whom Calvin and his followers affirm to have been — 
from all eternity reprobated with a reprobation which infallibly draws 
eternal damnation after it. For Enoch and David made their election 
to the rewards oftheir dispensations sure by the timely and voluntary 
obedience of faith. And so might all those who obstinately bury their 
talent or talents to the last. 

By FUTURE CONTINGENCIES, understand those things which will or 
will not be done ; as the free, unnecessitated will of man shall choose to 
do them or not. : 

By sEMINAL EXISTENCE, understand the existence that we had in 
Adam’s loins before Eve had conceived; or the kind of being which 
the prince of Wales had in the loins of the king before the queen came 
to England. 


“EQUAL 


CHECK, 


PART THIRD. 


BEING THE SECOND PART OF 


THE SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


SECTION I. 
Containing the Scripture doctrine of the perseverance of the saunts. 


I promisreD the reader that Zelotes and Honestus should soon meet 
again, to fight their last battle ; and, that I may be as good as my word, 


I bring them a second time upon the stage of controversy. 


I have no 


pleasure in seeing them contend with each other; but I hope that when 
they shall have shot all their arrows, and spent all their strength, they 
will quietly sit down and listen to terms of reconciliation. They have 
hadsalready many engagements; but they seem determined that this 
shall be the sharpest. Their challenge is about the doctrine of perse- 
verance. Zelotes asserts that the perseverance of believers depends 
entirely upon God’s almighty grace, which nothing can frustrate ; and 
that, of consequence, no believer can finally fall. Honestus, on the 
other hand, maintains that continuing in the faith depends chiefly, if not 
entirely upon the believer’s free will; and that of consequence final 
perseverance is partly, if not altogether as uncertain as the fluctuations 
of the human heart. The reconciling truth lies between those two 
extremes, as appears from the following propositions, in which I sum 


up the Scripture doctrine of perseverance :— 


God makes us glorious promises 
to encourage us to persevere. 

God on his part gives us his 
gracious help. 

Free grace always does its part. 


Final perseverance depends, first, 
on the final, gractous concurrence 
of free grace with free will. 


As free grace has in all things 
the pre-eminence over free will, we 
must lay much more stress upon 
God’s faithfulness than upon our 
own. ‘The spouse comes out of the 
wilderness, leaning upon her Be- 
loved, and not upon herself. 


II. 

Those promises are neither com- 
pulsory nor absolute. 

We must on our part faithfully 
use the help of God. 

Free will does not always do its 
part. 

Final perseverance depends, se- 
condly, on the final, faithful con- 
currence of free will with free 
grace. 

But to infer from thence that the 
svouse is to be carried by her Be- 
joved every step of the way, is 
unscriptural. He gently draws her, 
and she runs. He gives her his 
arm, and she leans. But far from 
dragging her by main force, he bids 
her remember Lot’s wife. 


. 


138 
I. 


The believer stands upon two 
legs, (if I may so speak,) God’s 
faithfulness and his own. The one 
is always sound, nor can he rest too 
much upon it, if he does but walk 
straight, as a wise Christian; and 
does not foolishly hop as an Anti- 
nomian, who goes only upon his 
right leg; or as a Pharisee, who 
moves entirely upon the left. 


‘When Gospel ministers speak of 
our faithfulness, they chiefly mean, 
(1.) Our faithfulness in repenting, 
that is, in renouncing our sins and 
Pharisaic righteousness; and in 
improving the talent of light, which 
shows us our natural depravity, 
daily imperfections, total helpless- 
ness, and constant need of an 
humble recourse to, and dependence 
on Divine grace. And, (2.) Our 
faithfulness in believing (even in 
hope against hope) God’s redeeming 
love to sinners in Christ ; in humbly 
apprehending, as returning prodi- 
gals, the gratuitous forgiveness of 
sins through the blood of the Lamb ; 
in cheerfully claiming, as impotent 
creatures, the help that is laid on 
the Saviour for us; and in con- 
stantly coming at his word, to “ take 
of the water of life freely.” And 
so far as Zelotes recommends this 
evangelical disposition of mind, 
without opening a back door to 
Antinomianism, by covertly pleading 
for sin, and dealing about his ima- 
ginary decrees of forcible grace 
and sovereign wrath, he Cannot be 
too highly commended. 

If Zelotes will do justice to the 
doctrine of perseverance, he must 
speak of the obedience of faith, that 
is, of genuine, sincere obedience, as 
the oracles of God do. He must 
not blush to display the glorious 
rewards with which God hath pro- 
mised to crown it. He must boldly 


EQUAL CHECK. 


Tl. ‘ 

The believer’s left leg, (I mean 
his own faithfulness,) is subject to 
many humours, sores, and bad 
accidents ; especially when he does 
not use it at all, or when he lays 
too much stress upon it, to save his 
other leg. If it is broken, he is 
already fallen ; and if he is out of 
hell, he must lean as much as he 
can upon his right leg, till the left 
begins to heal, and he can again run 
the way of God’s commandments. 

To aim chiefly at being faithful 
in external works, means of grace, 
and forms of godliness, is the high 
road to Pharisaism, and insincere 
obedience. I grant that he who is 
humbly faithful in little things, is 
faithful also in much; and that he 
who slothfully neglects little helps, 
will soon fall into great sins; but 
the professors of Christianity cannot 
be too frequently told that if they 
are not first faithful in maintaining 
true poverty of spirit, deep self 
humiliation before God, and 
thoughts of Christ’s blood and right- 
eousness ; they will soon slide into © 
Laodicean Pharisaism; and, Jehu 
like, they will make more of their 
own partial, external, selfish faith- 
fulness, than of Divine grace, and 
the Spirit’s power :—a most dan- 
gerous and common error this, into 
which the followers of Honestus 
are very prone to run, and so far 
as he leads them into it, or encou- 
rages them in it, he deserves to be 
highly blamed ; and Zelotes, in this 
respect, hath undoubtedly the ad. 
vantage over him. 


Would Honestus kindly meet 
Zelotes half way, he must speak 
of free grace, and of Christ’s obe- 
dience unto death, as the Scriptures 
do. He must glory in displaying 
Divine faithfulness, and placing it 
in the most conspicuous and en- 
gaging light. He must not be 


THIRD. | 


I. 

declare, that for want of it “the 
wrath of God cometh upon the 
children of disobedience”—upon 
fallen believers, “who have no in- 
heritance in the kingdom of Christ 
and of God,” Eph. ¥, 5. In a word, 
instead of emasculating “ Serjeant 
Fr, who valiantly guards the doctrine 
of perseverance,” he should show 
‘ him all the respect that Christ him- 
self does in the Gospel. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


139 


II. 

ashamed to point out the great re- 
wards of the faith which inherits 
promises, gives glory to God, and 
out of weakness makes us strong 
to take up our cross, and to run the 
race of obedience. In a word, he 
must teach his willing hearers to 
depend every day more and more 
upon Christ; and to lay as much 
stress upon his promises, as they 
ever did upon his threatenings. 


To sum all up in two propositions :— 


I. 

The infallible perseverance of 
obedient believers is a most sweet 
and evangelical doctrine, which 
cannot be pressed with too much 
earnestness and constancy upon 
sincere Christians, for their com- 
fort, encouragement, and establish- 


oo | 

The infallible perseverance of 
disobedient believers is a most dan- 
gerous and unscriptural doctrine ; 
and this cannot be pressed with too 
much assiduity and tenderness upon 
Antinomian professors, for their re- 
awakening and sanctification. 


ment. _ ' 
T ‘o see the truth of these propositions, we need only throw with can- 


dour, into the Scripture Scales, the weights which Zelotes and Honestus 
unmercifully throw at each other; taking particular care not to break, 
as they do, the golden beam of evangelical harmony, by means of which 


the opposite scales and weights exactly balance each other. - 


The weights of free grace thrown 
by Zelotes. 

The Lord shall establish thee a 
holy people to himself, as he hath 
sworn unto thee, Deut. xxviii, 9. 

Know therefore the Lord thy 
God; he is God, the faithful God, 
who keepeth covenant, Deut. vu, 9. 


He hath made with me an ever- 
lasting covenant, ordered in all 
things and sure: for this is all my 
salvation and all my desire, 2 Sam. 
xxiii, 5. 


Il. 

The weights of free will thrown 
by Honestus. 

If thou shalt keep the command- 
ments of the Lord thy God, and 
walk in his ways. (Ibid.) 

But they, &c, have transgressed 
the covenant. They continued not 
in my covenant, and I regarded 
them not, Hos. vi, 7; Heb. viii, 9. 

They have broken the everlast- 
ing covenant: therefore hath the 
curse devoured the earth, Isa. xxiv, 
5. They kept not the covenant of 
God, and refused to walk in his 
law, &c, so a fire was kindled in 


Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel; because they believed 
not in God, and trusted not in his salvation, &c. The wrath of God 
came upon them, é&c, and smote down the chosen of Israel, Psa. lxxviii, 
10, 21, 22, 31. 

Hence it appears, that part of the “everlasting covenant ordered in 
all things and surg,” is that those who break it presumptuously, and do 
not repent (as David did) before it be too late, shall sureny be smitten 
down and destroyed. 


140 EQUAL 


3 

With him [the Father of lights] 
1s no variableness, neither shadow 
of turning, James i, 17. I am the 
Lord, I change not: [I still bear 
with sinners during the day; of their 
visitation ;] therefore ye sons of 
Jacob are not consumed, Mal. 
iii, 6. 

[Observe here, that although 
God’s essence, dnd the principles 
of his conduct toward man never 
change; yet, as “he loves right- 
eousness and hates iniquity,” and 
as he is the rewarder of the rght- 
eous and the punisher of the wicked, 
he must show himself pleased or 
displeased, a rewarder or a pun- 
isher, as moral agents turn from 
sin to righteousness, or from right- 
eousness to sin. Without this kind 
of change, ad extra, he could not 
be holy and just :—he coutu not be 
the Judge of all the earth ;—he 
could not be God.] 


CHECK 


I. unl a 
The angel of his presence saved 
them: in his love and pity he re- 
membered them. But they re- 
belled and vexed his Holy Spirit ; 
therefore he was turned to be their 
enemy, Isa. Ixiii, 9, 10. The 
Lord God of Israel saith, I said 
indeed that thy house and the house 
of thy father should walk before 
me for ever ; but now be it far from 
me ; for, &e, they that despise me 
shall be lightly esteemed, 1 Sam. 
ii, 30. And the word of the Lord 
came to Jonah, saying, Preach unto 
Nineveh the preaching that I bid 
thee. And Jonah cried and said, 
Yet forty days and Nineveh shall 
be overthrown. So the people of 
Nineveh believed God, &c. For 
the king sat in ashes, and caused it 
to be proclaimed, &c. Cry might- 
ily to God, yea, let every one turn 
from his evil way, &c. Who can 
tell, if God will turn and repent, 
that we perish not. And God saw 


their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of 
the evil which he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not, 
Jonah iii, 1, &c. [From the preceding remarkable passages it is evident 
that, except in a few cases, the promises and the threatenings of God, 
so long as the day of grace and trial lasts, are conditional: and that, 
even when they wear the most absolute aspect, the condition is sey, 


implied. | : 

The gifts and calling of God 
are without vepentance, Rom, xi, 
29. [The apostle evidently speaks 
these words of God’s gifts to, and 
calling of the Jewish nation. ‘The 
Lord is so far from repenting (pro- 
perly speaking) of his having once 
called the Jews to the Mosaic co- 
venant of peculiarity, that he is 
ready nationally to re-admit them 
to his peculiar favour, when they 
shall nationally repent, embrace the 
Gospel of Christ, and so make their 
sincere calling to the Christian co- 
‘yenant sure by believing. But does 
this prove that God forces repent- 
ance upon every Jew, and that 


Il. 

I gave her time to repent and 
she repented not, Rev. ii, 21. Be- 
cause I have called and ye refused, 
&c, I also will mock—when your 
destruction cometh as a whirlwind, 
Prov. i, 24, &c. The Lord [to 
speak figuratively and after the 
manner of men] repented that he 
had made Saul king over Israel, 
1 Sam. xv, 35, [that is, when Saul 
proved unfaithful, the Lord rejected 
him in as positive a manneras a 
king would reject a minister, or 
break a general, when he repen' 
of his having raised them to offices, 
of which they now Show themselves 
absolutely unworthy. ] . 


_ 


THIRD. ] 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


141 


when the Jews will nationally repent, God will absolutely and irresistibly 


work out their salvation for them? 
look into the scale of Honestus. 


BE 
We (who hold fast the profession 
of our faith without wavering) are 
not of them who draw back unto 
perdition ; but of them that believe 


to the saving of the soul, Heb. x,. 


39. We believe that through the 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we 
shall be saved, Acts xv, 11. 


If Zelotes thinks so, I desire him to 


Il. 

If that, which ye have heard 
from the beginning, shall remain in 
you, 1 John i, 24. If ye continue 
in the faith, Col. i, 23. If ye con- 
tinue in his goodness, Rom. xi, 22. 
If ye do these things, 2 Peter i, 19. 
If we hold fast the confidence firm 
unto the end, Heb. ii, 6. For he 
that shall endure unio the end, the 
same shall be saved, Matt. xxiv, 13. 
[Should Zelotes endeavour to set 


aside these, and the like scriptures, by saying that each contains a 
Christian rr and not a Jewish tr, that is, a description, and not a condi- 


tion; I refer him to the Equal Check, part i, vol. i, p. 496, where that 


trifling objection is answered. ] 


aS 

If his [David’s] children forsake 
my law, &c, then will I visit their 
transgression with the rod, &c; 
nevertheless, my loving kindness 
will I not utterly take from him, 
[David, by utterly casting off his 
posterity] nor suffer my truth to 
fail, [as it would do if I appointed 
that the Messiah should come of 
another family,] Psa. lxxxix, 30, 


= 

Thus saith the -Lord, &c, O 
Israel, fear not; for I have re- 
deemed thee: I have called thee 
by thy name, thou art mine. When 
thou passest through the waters, I 
will be with thee; and through the 
rivers, they shall not overflow thee ; 
when thou walkest through the fire, 
thou shalt not be burnt, &c, Isa. 
xlni, 1, 2. 


Il. 

And thou Solomon, my son, know 
thou the God of thy father, and 
serve him with a perfect heart, 
and a willing mind: for the Lord 
searcheth all hearts, and under- 
standeth all the imaginations of the 
thoughts: ,if thou seek him, he 
will* be found of thee; but 2f thou 
forsake him, he will cast thee off 
for ever. Take heed now, &c, 
1 Chron. xxviil, 9. 

And the Spirit of God came upon 
Azariah, and he went out to meet 
Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye 
me, Asa, and all Judah; the Lord 
is with you while ye be with him; 
and if ye seek him, he will be found 
of you; but if ye forsake him, he 
will forsake you, 2 Chron. xy, 1, 2. 


* When Isaiah saith, “‘ I was found of them that sought me not,” &c, Rom. x, 23, 


he does not contradict his own exhortation, to ‘‘ seek the Lord while he may be 
found.” That noble testimony to the doctrine of grace does not militate against 
the doctrine of liberty: but it proves, (1.) That free grace is always beforehand 
with free will: and (2.) That as God freely called the Jews to the Mosaic co- 
yenant of peculiarity; so he gratuitously calls the Gentiles to the Christian co- 
‘venant of peculiarity; neither Jews nor Gentiles having previously sought that 
inestimable favour. But when God has so far revealed himself either to Jew or 
Gentile, as to say, ‘‘Seek ye my face,” wo to him who does not answer in truth 
and in time, ‘‘ Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” 


142 


i. 

All the promises of God in him 
[Christ] are Yea, and in him Amen, 
2 Cor. i, 20. [And so are all the 
menaces, for he is “the faithful 
Witness,” and “the Mediator of 
the new covenant,” which has its 
threatenings, as well as its promises ; 
as appears from the opposite words 


spoken by Christ himself. ] 


God willing more abundantly to 
show to the heirs of promise [i. e. 
to obedient believers] the immuta- 
bility of his counsel, confirmed it 
by an oath; that by two immutable 
things [the word and oath of the 
Lord] in which it was dnpossible 
for God to lie, we might have a 
strong consolation, who have fled 
for refuge to lay hold upon the hope 
set before us, Heb. vi, 17, 18. 

And thou shalt call his name 
Jesus, for he shall save his people 
from their sins, Matt. i, 21 


I will take you to me for a peo- 
ple, and be to you a God, Exod. vi, 7. 


shall surely perish, Deut. xxx, 17, 18. 


EQUAL CHECK. 


pa 


II. 

Remember whence thou art rt fall. 
en, repent, and do thy first works, 
or else I will remove thy candle- 
stick. I will fight with the sword 
of my mouth against them that held 
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. I 
will kill her children with death, I 
will spue thee out of my mouth, 
[Awful threatenings these, which 
had their public and national, as 
well as private and personal accom- 
plishment,] Rey. i, 5, 15, 16, 23; 
lu, 16. 

As truly as I live, saith the Lord, 
&c, your carcasses shall fall in this 
wilderness; and all that, &c, have 


‘murmured against me, doubiless ye 


shall not come into the land, con. 
cerning which I sware to make you 
dwell therein, save Caleb and Josh- 
ua, &c. Ye shall bear your ini- 
quities, &c, and ye shall know my 
breach of promise, Numbers xiv, 
28-34. 

My mother and ‘my brethren 
[that is, my people] are these, who 
hear the word of God, and keep it, 
Matt. xii, 50. I will destroy [my 
backsliding] people, since they re- 
turn not, Jer. xv, 7. 

But if thine heart turn away, so 
that thou wilt not hear, &c, I de- 
nounce unto you this day, that ye 
Indeed, the hand of the Lord 


was against them [when they disobeyed] to destroy them, &c, until they 


vwere consumed, Deut. ii, 15. 
‘for our admonition, 1 Cor. x, 11. 


The Lord thy God hath chosen 
thee to be a special people unto 
himself. He brought forth his peo- 
ple with joy, and his chosen with 
gladness, Deut. xiv, 2; Psa. cv, 43. 

My [faithful] people shall never 
be ashamed, Joel ii, 27. 


The work of righteousness shall 
be peace, quietness, and assurance 
for ever ; and my people shall dwell 
am a peaceable habitation, and in 


Now all ee things, &c, are written 


Il. 

And the Lord spake to Moses, 
saying, Get you up from among this 
congregation [this special, chosen 
people] that I may consume them 
in a moment, Num. xvi, 45. 

Thou [my unfaithful people] 
hadst a whore’s forehead: thou re: 
fusedst to be ashamed, Jer. iii, 3. 

Every one of the house of Is. 
rael, that separateth himself from 
me, saith the Lord, I will cut him 
off from the midst of my people, 


—_— 


THIRD.] 
I. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


143 
I 


sure dwellings, and in quiet resting Ezek. xiv, 7. There is no peace 


places, Isa. xxxii, 17, 18, 

The eternal God is thy refuge; 
and underneath are the everlasting 
arms, &c. Israel shall dwell in 
safety alone, &c. Happy art thou, 
O Israel! Who is like unto thee, 
O people saved by the Lord, the 
shield of thy help? Deut. xxxiii, 
27, &e. 


The Lord will pity his people, 
Joel ii, 18., 


. Hath God [absolutely] cast away 
his people [the Jews?] God forbid! 
God has not cast away his people, 
whom he foreknew [as believing. 
The Jews being as welcome to be- 
heve in Christ as the Gentiles, ] 
Rom. xi, 1, 2. 

Zion said, The Lord hath for- 
saken me, and my Lord hath for- 
gotten me. Can a woman forget 
her sucking child, that she should 
not have compassion on the son of 
her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet 
will I not forget thee, Isa. xlix, 14,15. 

Jesus having loved his own [ dis- 
ciples] he loved them unto the end 
[of his stay in this world, except 
him that was once “his own fami- 
liar friend, in whom he trusted,” 
Judas, whom our Lord himself ex- 
cepts, John xvii, 12 ;] John xii, 1. 


to the wicked, Isa. lvii, 21. 

That the house of Israel may go 
no more astray from me, &c, but 
that they may be my people, Ezek. 
xiv, 11. Obey my-voice, and ye 
shall be my people, Jer. vii, 23. 
Wo unto them [Israel and Ephraim] 
for they have fied from me; de- 
struction unto them, because they 
have transgressed against me. They 
return not to the Most High, Hos. 
vii, 13, 16. 

The Lord shall judge his people, 
Heb. x, 30. Judgment must begin 
at the house of God, 1 Pet. iv, 17. 

, Ye are a chosen [choice] gene- 
ration, &c, which in time past were 
not a people, but are now the peo- 
ple of God ; which had not obtain- 
ed mercy, but now have obtained 
mercy [by believing,] 1 Pet. ii, 9, 
10. 

Therefore, the children of Israel 
could not stand before their ene- 
mies, &c, because they were ac- 
cursed; neither will I be with you 
any more [said the Lord] except ye 
destroy the accursed thing from 
among you, Josh. vii, 12. 

I will call her beloved, who was 
not beloved. Jesus loved him, [the 
young ruler, who went away sor- 
rowing.| I will love them no more, 
Rom. ix, 24; Mark x, 21; Hos. 
ix, 15. 


I have loved thee with an everlasting love, [or with the love with which 
’ I loved thee of old, when I brought thee out of Egypt,] therefore, with 


loving kindness have I drawn thee, Jer. xxxi, 3. 


[Compare the word 


everlasting in the original, with these words, “ When Israel was a child, 
then I loyed him, and called my son out of Egypt,” Hos. xi, 1.] ; 
I Il 


Truly God is good to Israel, Psa. 
This God is our God for 
ever and ever ; he will be our guide 


_ even unto death, Psa. xlviii, 24. 


»* 


Even to such as are of a clean 
heart. (Jbid.) Depart from evil, do 
good, and dwell for evermore. Bind 
mercy and truth about thy neck, 
é&c, so shalt thou find favour, &c, 
in the sight of God and man, Psa. 
Xxxvill, 27; Proy. il, 3. 4. 


144 


I. 

Who shall lay any thing to the 
charge of God’s elect? [them that 
«are in Christ, who walk not after 
the flesh, but after the Spirit.”] It 
is God that justifieth; who is he 
that condemneth them? Rom. viii, 
1, 33°34, 

All things are yours [ye Corinth- 
ians] and ye are Christ’s and Christ 
is God’s. Of him are ye in Christ 
Jesus, 1 Cor. iii, 21; i, 30. 


To them that are sanctified by 
God the Father, and preserved in 
Jesus Christ, and called [to enjoy 
the blessings of his Gospel,| Jude 1. 

If we believe not, yet he abi- 
deth faithful; he cannot deny 
himself, 2 Tim. u, 13. ['There- 
fore | 

Except the Lord keep the city, 
the watchman waketh but in vain, 
Psa. cxxvii, 1. 


He [the Lord] led him [Jacob] 
about, é&c, he kept him as the apple 
of his eye. As an eagle fluttereth 
over her young, taketh them, bear- 
eth them on her wings; so the 
Lord alone did lead him, Deut. 
xxx, 10-12. . 

Holy Father, keep through thy 
oun name those whom thou hast 
given me, [that I may impart unto 
them the peculiar blessings of my 
dispensation,| John xvii, 11. 


You who are kept by the power 
of God unto saivation, ready to 
be revealed in the last time, 1 Pet. 
i, 5. 


I am _ persuaded that neither 
death nor life, &c, nor angels, &c, 
nor any other creature [Note : he 
does not say, Nor any iniquity] 
shall be able to separate us from the 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 
' (ae 
Il. 

[No righteous judge will :] for to 
be spiritually minded is life and 
peace; but to be carnally minded 
is death, verse 6. Whosoever hath 
sinned against me, said the Lord, 
him will I blot out of my book, 
Exod. xxxii, 33. 

Examine yourselves [ye Connth- 
ians] whether ye be in the faith, 
&c. Know ye not, &c, that Christ 
is in you, except ye be reprobates ? 
2 Cor. xiii, 5. 

To them, who by patient contin- 
uance in well doing, seek for glo- 
ry, honour, and immortality, [God 
will render] eternal life, Rom. ii, 7. _ 

If we deny him, he will also. 


“deny us: [for he abideth faithful 


to his threatenings, as well as to 
his promises,] ver. 12. 

I say unto all, Watch. Watch ° 
thou in all things. He that is 
begotten of God keepeth himself, 
Mark xiii, 37; 2 Tim. iv, 5; 1 
John vy; 18. 

There was no strange god with 
him [Jacob.] But, &c, they for- 
sook God, &c, sacrificed to devils, 
&ec, and when the Lord saw it, 
he abhorred them; [and said] I 
will spend mine arrows upon them, 
verses 12, 15, 17, 19, 23. , 

Keep yourselves in the love of 
God. Little children, keep your- 
selves from idols. Fathers, &c, 
love not the world, &c. If any 
[of you] love the world, the love 
of the Father is not in him. [He 
is fallen from God in spirit,] Jude 
21; 1 Johny, 21; ii, 15. 

Through faith [en your part.] 
(Ibid.) Holding faith, and a good 
conscience, which some having put 
away, concerning FaITH, have 
made shipwreck, 1 Tim. i, 19. 

Your iniquities have separated 
between you and your God, Isa. 
lix, 2. I so run (for an incor. — 
ruptible crown) not as uncertainly : 
so fight I, not as one that beateth 


a 


&e. 


THIRD.] nf, 


love of God, which is in Christ the air: 


Jesus our Lord, Rom. viii, 38. 


I know whom [J have believed, 
and I am persuaded that he is able 
to keep that which I have commit- 


ted unto him against that day, 2 
Tim. i, 12. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


145 


Il. 
but I keep my body 
under, &c, lest that by any means 
I myself should be a castaway, o1 


‘a reprobate, 1 Cor. ix, 26, 27. 


There is no respect of persons 
with God. Thou partakest of the 
root of the olive tree, &c, some ot 
the branches are broken off, &c 
Boast not thyself against them 


By unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith, &c, 
fear, &c, lest he also spare not thee, Rom. u, 11; xi, 17, &c. 


Give 


all diligence to add to your faith virtue, &c, for 7f ye do these things, 


ye shall never fall, 2 Pet. i, 5, 10. 
I 


In all these things we are more 
than conquerors, through him that 
loved us, Rom. vii, 37. 


Moreover, whom he did predes- 
tinate [that is, appomt to be con- 
formed to the image of his Son, 
according to the Christian dispen- 
sation] them he also called [to 
believe in Christ ;] and whom he 
thus called [to believe in Christ, 
when they made their calling sure 
by actually believing, | them he also 
justified ; and whom he justified 
[as sinners by FaiTH, and as 
believers by THE works of faith] 
them he also glorified, Rom. vii, 
30. By one offering he hath 
perfected for ever [in atoning 
merits] them that are sanctified, 
Heb. x,14. [Here we have a brief 
account of the method in which 
God brings obedient, persevering 
believers to glory. But what has 
this to do with Zelotes’ personal 
and unconditional predestination to 
eternal life, or to eternal death? 
To show therefore that the sense 
which he gives to these passages 


is erroneous, I need only prove 
that all those who are called are 


Il. 

I have kept the faith ;—for I 
have kept the ways of the Lord, 
and have not wickedly departed 
from my God, 2 Tim. iv, 7; Psa. 
Xviii, 21. 

Many are called [to believe | but 
few are chosen [to the rewards of 
faith,] Matt. xxii, 14. O thou 
wicked servant, I forgave thee all 
that debt [that is, I justified thee, ] 
because thou desiredst: me, &c, 
shouldst thou not also have had 
compassion on thy fellow servant, 
even as I had pity on thee? And 
his Lord was wroth, and delivered 
him to the tormentors, Matt. xviii, 
32, &c. He that despised Moses’ 
law, died without mercy, &c, of 
how much sorer punishment shall he 
be thought worthy, who hath count- 
ed the blood of the covenant, 
wherewith he was sanctified, an 
unholy thing! Heb. x, 29. Ye 
[believers] shall be hated of all 
men, &c, but he fof you] that 
endureth to the end, shall be [eter- 
nally] saved, Matt. x, 22. (For 
God) will render eternal life to 
them, who by patient continuance 
in well doing seek for glory, Rom. 
Hi, Be 


not justified ; and that all those who are justified, and sanctified, are not 


glorified ; but only those who make their calling, election, justification, 
sanctification, and glorification sure by the obedience of faith unto the 


end. And I prove it by the opposite scriptures. ] 
Vor. II. 10 


146 EQUAL CHECK. ° [Parr 


Can any unprejudiced person read the preceding passages without 
seeing, (1.) That, according to the Scriptures, and the Gospel axioms, 
our perseverance is suspended on two grand causes, the jirst of 
which is merciful free grace, and the second faithful free will. 
(2.) That those two causes must finally act in conjunction. And (3.) 
That when free grace hath enabled free will to concur, and to work out 
its own salvation, if free will obstinately refuse to do it till the night 
comes when no man can work, free grace gives up free will to its own 
perverseness; and then perseverance fails, and final apostasy takes 
place. 


SECTION II. 


The important doctrine of perseverance is farther weighed in the Scrip- 
ture Scales. 


Tue scriptures produced in the preceding section might conyince an 


impartial reader that Zelotes and Honestus are both in the wrong with 
respect to the doctrine of perseverance. and that a Bible Christian holds 
together ‘the doctrines which they keep asunder. But considering that 
prejudice is not easily convinced ; and fearing lest Zelotes and Hones. 
tus should both think they have won the day, the one against free will, 
and the other against free grace, merely because they can quote, 
behind each other’s back, some passages which I have not yet balanced, 
and which each will think matchless ; I shall give them leave to fight it 
out before Candidus, reminding him that Zelotes produces No. I. against 
free will; that Honestus produces No. II. against free grace ; and that 
I produce both numbers to show that our free will must concur with 
God’s free grace, in order to our persevering in the faith and in the 
obedience of faith. 
I. II. 

_A vineyard of red wine. I the _ [ had planted thee a noble vine, 
Lord do keep i: I will water it wholly a right seed. How then 
every moment: lest any hurt it, I art thou turned into the degénerate 
will keep it night and day, Isa. plant of a strange vine unto me? 

XXVii, 2, 3. &c. Thou saidst, &c, I have loved 
é strangers, and after them I will go, 
Jer. ti, 21,25. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that 
I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring 
forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now I will tell you 
what I will de to my vineyard, &c; I will lay i waste, &c, and com- 
mand the clouds that they rain no rain upon it, Isa. y, 4, 5, 6. i 

A II. 

The Lord God of Israel saith, Backsliding Israel, &c, hath 

that he hateth putting away, Mal. played the harlot. And I said, &e, 


ii, 16. (And yet he allows it for ‘Turn thou unto me: but she return. © 


the cause of fornication, Matt. v, ed not; and her treacherous sister 

32.) Judah saw it. And I saw, when, 
for—adultery, I had put her away, 
and given her a bill of divorcement ; 
yet her treacherous sister Judah 
feared not, Jer. iii, 6,7, &.. / 


- 


THIRD.] 


[a 
The righteous shall never be 
moved, Prov. x, 30. 
he mountains shall depart, &c, 
t my kindness shall not depart 
from thee, neither shall the covenant 
of my peace be removed, saith the 
Lord, Isa. liv, 10. 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


147 
Il. 


I marvel that ye are so soon re. 
moved from him that called you. 

Unto the wicked, God saith, 
What hast thou to do to declare my 
statutes, or that thou shouldst take 
my covenant in thy mouth? Psa. 
1,16. O Israel, if thou wilt put 
away thy ahominations out of my 


sight, thou shalt not remove, Jer. iv, 1. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned ; 


therefore she is removed, Lam. i, 8. 


My God will cast them away, be- 


cause they did not hearken unto him, Hos. ix, 17. 


K 

Vhey that trust in the Lord shall 
be as Mount Zion, which cannot be 
removed, but abideth for ever. As 
the mountains are round about Je- 
rusalem, so the Lord is round about 
his people, from henceforth, even 
for ever, Psa. cxxv, 1, 2. 


I. 

Lord, who shall abide in thy ta- 
bernacle? He that walketh upright- 
ly, and worketh righteousness, &c. 
He that does these things shall never 
be moved, Psalm xv, 1, 2,5. Abide 
in me, and I [will abide] in you, 
John xv, 4. He that dwelleth in 
the secret place of the Most High, 


[thou, Lord, art my hiding place, Psa. xxxii, 7,] shall abide under the 


shadow of the Almighty, Psa. xci, 1. 


abideth for ever, 1 John ii, 17. 


He that does the will of God 


Draw out thy soul to the hungry, &c, 


and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and, &c, thou shalt be like a 


spring of water, whose waters fail not, Isa. lvii, 10, 11. 
I 


The Lord will speak peace unto 
his people, and to his saints, Psalm 
Ixxxy, 8. Peace shall be upon Is- 
rael, Psa. cxxv, 5. For Christ is 
our peace, Eph. ii, 14. 


O continue thy loving kindness 
unto them that know thee. 


his own eyes, &c, he hath left off to be wise, and to do good, &c. 


Il. 

Be diligent, that you may be found 
of him in peace. If the house be 
worthy, let your peace come upon 
it. As many as walk according to 
this rule, [i. e. as become new crea- 
tures, ] peace be on them, and mercy, 
2 Pet. ii, 14; Matt. x, 13; Gal. 
vi, 15, 16. 

And thy righteousness to the up- 
right in heart, Psa. xxxvi, 10. He 
[the apostate] flattereth himself in 
He 


setteth himself in a way that is not good, he abhorreth not evil, &c. 
There are the workers of iniquity fallen, &c, and shall not be able to 
rise, verses 2, 3, 4, 12. Whoso continueth in the perfect law of liberty, 
he being a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed, James i, 25. 
They went out from us, but [in general] they were not of us [that con- 
tinue in the perfect law of liberty.] For had they been of us [that are 
still doers of the work] they would no doubt have continued with us : [the 
Gnostics, or Antinomians, would not have been able to draw so many 
over to their pernicious ways, or tenets, 2 Pet. ii, &c.] But they went 
out [they joined the Antinomians] that they might be made manifest, that 
they were not all of us, [i. e. that in general their heart had departed 
from the Lord, and from us ; they of late being of us, more by profession 


if 


148 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


than by possession of the faith which works by obedient love,] 1 John 
ii, 19. So tay 
St. John says they were not all of us, to leave room for some excep- 
tions. For as we are persuaded that many, who have gone over tothe 
Solifidians in our days, are still of us that are doers of the work, so St. 
John did not doubt but-some, who had been seduced by the primitive 
Antinomians, see verse 26, continued to obey the perfect law of liberty, 
which the Nicolaitans taught them to decry. May we, after his example, 
be always ready to make a proper distinction between the Solifidians 
that are of us, and those that are not of us! That is, between those who 
still keep Christ’s commandments, and those who break them-with as 
little ceremony as they break a ceremonious “rule of life,” or burden- 


some rule of civility. 


Let them that suffer according to 
the will of God, commit the keeping 
of their souls to God, &c, as unto a 
faithful Creator, 1 Pet. iv, 19. 

I will betroth thee unto me for 
ever, &c. I will even betroth thee 
unto me in faithfulness. The Lord 
is faithful who shall establish you, 
and keep you from evil. To him 
that is able to keep you from falling, 
and to present you faultless before 
the presence of his glory with ex- 
ceeding joy, Hos. ii, 19, 20; 2 
Thess. iii, 3; Jude 24. 


The earth which beareth thorns, 
is rejected ; and, &c, its end is to 
be burned. But, beloved, we are 
persuaded better things of you, and 
things which accompany salvation, 
though we thus speak, Heb. vi, 8, 9. 


II. 
In well domg. (Ibid.) Say ye to 


the righteous, that it shall be well 


with them, for they shall eat the fruit 
of their doings, Isa. ii, 10. 

If ye have not been faithful inthe 
unrighteous mammon, (that which 
is least,) who will commit unto you 
the true riches ? Luke xvi, 11. He 
made his own people to go forth 
like sheep, and guided them like a 
flock. And he led them on safely, 
so that they feared not, &c. Yet 
they kept not his testimonies ; but 
turned back and dealt unfaithfully. 
&c. When God heard this, he, 
&c, greatly abhorred Israel: so that 
he forsook the tabernacle, &c, which 
he had placed among men, &c, Psa. 
Ixxviil, 52, &c. ® 

For, &c, ye have ministered to 
the saints, and do minister : [so that, 
in the judgment of charity, which 
“hopeth all things,” especially 
where there are favourable appear- 
ances, it is right in me to hope the 
best of you, nor will I suspect you, 


till you give me cause so to do. However, remember that] if we sin 
wilfully, &c, there remaineth [for us,] &c, a fearful looking for of juds- 
ment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries [that is, 
apostates,] Heb. vi, 10; x, 26, 27. 
I ‘ I 

TI am confident of this very thing, 
that he who has begun a good work you all, because I have you in my 
in you, will perform it until the day heart [and charity hopeth all things] 
of Jesus Christ, Phil. i, 6. inasmuch as in my bonds, &c, ye 
are partakers of my grace,—ye 
have always obeyed, Phil. i, 7; ii, 12. [Thus spake the apostle to those 


It is meet for me to think this of | 


ee a 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 149 


who continued to obey. But to his disobedient converts he wrote in a 

different strain :] O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you 
, Should not obey the truth?’ Have ye suffered so many things in vain? 

I desire now to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you, Gal. iii, 1, 
e 4; iv, 20. 
& II. 

The Lord is my rock,and my My defence is of God, who 
fortress, and my deliverer; my saveth the upright in heart, Psa. vil, 
God, my strength, in whom I will 10. Do good, O Lord, to those 
trust, my buckler, and the horn of that are good and upright in their 
my salvation, and my high tower, hearts: as for such as turn aside 
Psa. xv, 2. unto their crooked ways, the Lord 

shall lead them forth with the work- 
ers of iniquity, Psa. exxv, 4, 5. 

I will put my Spirit within you, ‘Thus saith the Lord God, I will 
and cause you [so far as is con- yet forthis be inquired of by the 
sistent with your moral agency] house of Israel, to do it for them, 
to walk in my statutes, and ye Ezek. xxxvi, 37. Ye stiff necked, 
shall (or will) keep my judgments &c, ye do always resist the Holy 
and do them, Ezek. xxxvi, 27. Ghost, as your fathers did, Acts vil, 

ol. 

Israel shall be saved inthe Lord How shall we escape, if we 
with an everlasting salvation, Isa. neglect so great salvation? Heb. 
iver v= ii, 3. Remember Lot’s wife, Luke 

XV, 32. 

O Lord, save me, and I shall be Thy faith hath saved thee, Luke 
saved, for thou art my praise, Jer. vii, 50. Ye are saved, if ye keep 
xvii, 14. Salvation isof the Lord, {in memory and practice] what I 
Jonah ii, 9. have preached unto you, 1 Cor. 

Xv, 2. 

The foundation of God standeth And let every one that nameth 
sure, having this seal, The Lord the name of Christ, depart from in- 
knoweth them that are his, 2'Tim. iquity. (Ib¢d.) Now if any man 
ii, 19. have not the Spirit of God, he ts 

none of his, Rom. viii, 9. His pe- 

culiar people (being) a holy nation, zealous of good works, 1 Pet. i, 9; 

Tit. ii, 14. Be zealous, therefore, and repent ; (or) I will spue thee 

out of my mouth, Rey. iu, 19, 16. i 
I, : 

Thou wilt perform the truth to _I will perform the oath which I 
Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, sware unto Abraham thy father, 
which thou hast sworn to our fa- &c, because that Abraham obeyed 
thers from the days of old. To my voice, and kept my charge, my 
perform the mercy promised to our commandments, my statutes, and 
fathers, and to remember his holy my laws, Gen. xxvi, 3,5. Thus 
covenant and the oath which he says the Lord God of Israel, Cursed 
sware to our father Abraham, Mi- be the man that obeyeth not the words 
cah vii, 20; Luke i, 72. of this covenant, which I com- 

manded your fathers, (in the day 
that I brought them forth from the iron furnace,) saying, Obey my 
voice and do them, so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God; 


150 


EQUAL CHECK. 


im 


that I may perform the oath which I have sworn to your sie eae 


3, 4, 5. 
ie 


Surely goodness and mercy shall 


follow me all the days of my life, 


Psa. xxii, 6. 


A thousand shall fall at thy side, 
and ten thousand at thy right hand: 
but it shall not come nigh thee, Psa. 
Xel,e 


My sheep [obedient believers] 
hear my voice, and I know [ap- 
prove] them, and they follow me: 
and J give unto them eternal life, and 
they shall never perish, neither 
shall any pluck them out of my Fa- 
ther’s hand, John x, 27, &c. 


Il. . 7 

If thou continue in his goodness. 
Holding faith and a good con- 
science, which some having put 
away, concerning faith, have made 
shipwreck, Rom. xi, 22; 1 Tim. i, 
18, 19. 

Because thou hast made the 
Most High thy habitation. Be- 
cause he hath set his love upon me, 
therefore will I deliver him, verses 
9, 14. 

The Lord preserveth the faith- 
ful, &c. Be of good courage, and 
he shall strengthen your heart, all 
ye that hope in the Lord, Psa. xxxi, 
23, 24. If ye will fear the Lord, 
and obey his voice, and not rebel 
against his commandment, then 
shall ye continue following the Lord 


your God. But if ye will not obey, &c, then shall the hand of the Lord 
be against you. Only serve him in truth, with all your heart: for con- 
sider how great things*he has done for you. But if ye shall still do 
wickedly, ye shall be consumed, 1 Sam. xii, 14, 15, 24, 25. [Lest 
Samuel’s testimony should be rejected as unevangelical, I produce that of 
Christ himself ; hoping that Zelotes will allow our Lord to understand 
his own Gospel.] Bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. As 
the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue in my leve. If ye 
keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; evenas I have kept my 
Father’s commandments, and abide in his love, John xy, 8, &c. Every 
branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away—and they are 
burned, John xy, 2, 6. 

I II. 


There shall arise false christs, | They shalldeceivemany. Take 


and shall show great signs, inso- 
much that (if it were possible) they 
shall deceive rAavyco [lead into 
error] the very elect, Matt. xxiv, 


heed that ‘no man deceive you, 
ver. 4,5. They, (that cause divyi- 
sions,) by good words deceive the 
hearts of the simple, Rom. xvi, 18. 
[Query : are all the simple believers 


whom party men deceive, very re- 
probates?| I have espoused you to Christ, &c. But I fear, lest by 
any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, so your minds should be cor- 
rupted, 2 Cor. xi, 2, 8. They have been deceived, (or have erred) from 
the faith (anerravnSnde the very word used by our Lord, and strength- 
ened by a preposition,) 1 Tim. vi, 10. [When Zelotes supposes that 
the clause (if it were possible) necessarily implies an dmpossibility, 
does he not make himself ridiculous before those who know the Scrip- 
tures? That expression, if it were possible, is used only on four other occa- 
sions ; and in each of them it notes great difficulty, but by no means an 


—————— ee ee 


THIRD.|] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 151 
impossibility. 'Take only two instances: “If it were possible, ye would 
have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me,” Gal. iv, 
15. “Paul hasted to be at Jerusalem on the day of pentecost, if it 
were possible for him,” Acts xx, 16. Now is it not evident, either that 
Paul wanted common sense, if he hasted to do what could not absolutely 
be done ; or that the expression, ¢f it were possible, implies no impossi- 
bility? And is not this a proof that Calvinism can now deceive Zelotes, 
as easily as the tempter formerly deceived Aaron, David, Solomen, De- 
mas, and Judas in the matter of the golden calf, Uriah, Milcom, and 


mammon ? 
I. 

I have prayed for thee, that thy 
faith fail not, Luke xxii, 49. 

That Peter’s faith failed for a 
time is evident from the following 
observations : (1.) “ Faith without 
works is dead ;” much more faith 
with lying, cursing, and the repeat- 
ed denial-of Christ. (2.) Our Sa- 
viour himself said to his disciples, 
after a far less grievous fall, “ How 
is it that you have no faith?” Mark 
iv, 40. (3.) His adding immedi- 
ately, “ When thou art converted, 
strengthen thy brethren,’ shows 
that Peter would stand in need of 
conversion, and consequently of 
living, converting faith; for as by 


II. 

I know thy works, &c, thou hold- 
est fast my name, and hast not de- 
nied my faith [as Peter did.] Hay- 
ing damnation because they have 
cast off their first faith, Rev. ii, 13 ; 
1 Tim. vy, 12. Which [a good 
conscience, the bcliever’s most pre- 
cious jewel, next to Christ] some 
having put away, concerning faith 
have made shipwreck, 1 Tim. i, 19, 
Without faith it is impossible to 
please God. The just shall live by 
faith, but if he draw back [i. e. if 
he make shipwreck of faith] my 
soul shall have no pleasure in him, 
Heb. xi, 6; x, 38. If any [be- 
liever] provide not for his own, &c, 


he hath denied the faith, and is 
worse than an infidel, 1 Tim. v, 8. 


destructive unbelief we depart from 
God, so by living faith we are con- 
verted to him. Hence it is evident. 
that if Christ prayed that Peter’s faith might not fail at all, he prayed 
conditionally ; and that upon Peter’s refusing to watch and pray, which 
was the condition particularly mentioned by our Lord, Christ’s prayer 
was no more answered than that which he soon after put up, about his 
not drinking the bitter cup, and about the forgiveness of his revilers and 
murderers. But if our Lord prayed (as seems most likely) that Peter’s 
faith might not fail, or die like that of Judas, i. e. in such a manner as 
never to come to life again, then his prayer was perfectly answered : 
for the candle of Peter’s faith, which a sudden blast of temptation (and 
not the extinguisher of malicious, final obstinacy) had put out—Peter’s 
faith, I say, like the smoking flax, caught again the flame of truth and 
love, and shone to the enlightening of thousands on the day of pentecost, 
as well as to the conversion of his own soul that very night. However, 
from our Lord’s prayer, Zelotes concludes that true faith can never fail, 
in opposition to the scriptures which fill the opposite scale ; yea, and to 
reason, which pronounces that our Lord was too wise to spend his last 
moments in asking that a thing might not happen, which, if we believe 
Zelotes, could not possibly happen. : 
I II. 


God, even our F ather, who hath If ye will not believe, ye shall 


152 
I. 


loved us, and given us everlasting 
consolation, &c, stablish you in 
every good word and work, 2 
Thess. ii, 16, 17. He who esta- 
blishes us with you in Christ, &c, 
is God, 2 Cor. i, 21. 


EQUAL CHECK. 


“ wicked, &c. 


[Part 


not be established, Isa. vii, 9. God 
preserveth not the life of the 
He withdraweth not 
his eyes from the righteous, &c. 
He showeth them their work, and 
their transgressions, &c. He open- 


eth also their ear to discipline, and 

commandeth that they return from iniquity. If they obey and serve 

him, they will spend their days in prosperity, &c. But if they obey 

not, they shall perish, &c, and die without knowledge, Job xxxvi, 6-12. 
I. Il. 


Know ye not that ye are the 
temple of God? &c. If any [of 
you | defile the temple of God, him 
will God destroy, iii, 16,17. If 
thy right eye offend thee, pluck it 
out; for it is profitable for thee 
that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body 
should be cast into hell, Matt. v, 29. Destroy not him with thy meat, 
for whom Christ died. For meat destroy not the work of God [in] thy 
brother, who stumbleth, or is offended, Rom. xiv, 15, 20, 21. The 
Lord having saved the people, &c, afterward destroyed them that be- 
lieved not, Jude 5. They did all drink, &c, of that spiritual rock 
which followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of 
them God was not well pleased; for they, &c, were destroyed of the 
destroyer, 1 Cor. x, 4,5, 10. They were broken off becatse of un- 
belief, and thou standest by faith, &c, continue in his goodness, other- 
wise thou also shalt be cut off, Rom. ix, 20,22. Through thy knowledge 
shall thy weak brother perish, for whom Christ died, &c. Wherefore, 
if meat make my brother to stumble [and so to perish} I will eat no 
flesh while the world standeth, 1 Cor. viii, 11, 13. There shall be 
false teachers among you, &c, who, denying the Lord that bought them, 
shall bring upon themselves swift destruction. These shall utterly perish 
in their own corruption, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, 


Christ shall also confirm you un- 
to the end, that ye may be blame- 
less, &c. God is faithful, by whom 
ye were called unto the fellowship 
of his Son, 1 Cor. i, 8, 9. 


&e. 
12, 15. 
us 

He hath said, I will never leave 
thee, nor forsake thee: so that [in 
the way of duty] we may boldly 
say, The Lord is my helper, Heb. 
xiii, 5,6. (I add, in the way of 
duty, because God made that pro- 
mise originally to Joshua, who knew 
God’s breach of promise, when 
Achan stepped out of the way of 
duty. Compare Josh. i, 5, with 
Josh. vii, 12, and Num. xiv, 34.) 

Then the devil taketh him up 
into the holy city, and setteth him 


Cursed children, who have forsaken the right way, 2 Pet, ii, 1, 
See also the scriptures quoted in page 82. 


My people have committed two 
evils, they have forsaken me, &e. 
I will even forsake you, saith the 
Lord, Jer. ii, 13; xxii, 33. The 
destruction of the transgressors and 
of the sinners shaii be together, 
and they that forsake the Lord 
shall be consumed, &e, and they 
shall both burn together, and none 
shall quench them, Isa. i, 28, 31. 


Jesus said, It is written again, 
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy 


THIRD.] 
I 


on a pinnacle of the temple, and 
saith unto him, If thou be the Son 
[or child] of God, cast thyself 
down: for it is written, He shall 
give his angels charge concerning 
thee, &c, [not only lest thou fall 
finally, but also] lest thou dash thy 
foot against a stone, Matt. iv, 5, 6 ; 
Psapsci,, 11, 12. 

How wisely does the tempter 
quote Scripture, when he wants to 
inculcate the absolute preservation 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


Il. 
God, Matt. iv, 7. Neitner let us 
tempt Christ, as some of them also 
tempted, and were destroyed of 
serpents, 1 Cor. x, 9. 

Who can tell how many have 
been destroyed by dangerous er- 
rors, which after insinuating them- 
selves into the bosom of the simple, 
by means of their smoothness and 
fine colours, drop there a mortal 
poison, that too often breaks out in 
virulent expressions, or in practices 


of the saints! Can Zelotes find a 
fitter passage to support their un- 
conditional perseverance? It is true, however, that he never quotes it 
in favour of his doctrine: for who cares to plough with such a heifer? 
(Fenum habet in cornu.) Therefore, though she is as fit for the work 
as most of those which he does it with; he never puts her to his 
plough, no, not when he makes the most crooked furrows. Should it 
be asked why the devil did not encourage Christ to throw himself down, 
by giving him some hints that a grievous fall would humble him, would 
make him sympathize with the fallen, would drive him nearer to God, 
would give him an opportunity to shout louder the praisés of preserving 
grace, &c, I reply, that the tempter was too wise to show so openly 
the cloven foot of his doctrine ; too decent not to save appearances , 
too judicious to imitate Zelotes. 


worthy of Mr. Fulsome ? 


SECTION III. 


What thoughts our Lord, St. John, St. Paul, and St. James entertained 
of fallen believers—A parallel between the backsliders delineated by 
St. Peter, and those who are described by St. Jude—A horrible de- 
struction awaits them, for denying the Lord that bought them, and for 
turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. 


Ir is impossible to do the doctrine of perseverance justice, without 
considering what Christ and the apostles say of apostates. Even in 
their days the number of falling and fallen believers was so great, that 
a considerable part of the last epistles seems to be nothing but a charge 
against apostates, an attempt to reclaim Pharisaic and Antinomian 
backsliders, and a warning to those who yet stood, not to “ fall away 
after the same example of unbelief and conformity to this present world.” 

Begin we by an extract from Christ’s epistles to the Churches o: 
Asia. ‘Though the “ Ephesians hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans,” yet, 
after St. Paul’s death, they so far inclined to lukewarmness, that they 
brought upon themselves the following reproof:—*“I have somewhat 
against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember, there- 
fore, whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works, or else 
I will remove thy candlestick.” The Church at Pergamos was not in 


154 EQUAL CHECK. | [parr 


a better condition; witness the severe charge that follows:—*“ Thou 


hast them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a ~ 


stumbling block before the children of Israel, &c, to commit fornica~ 
tion. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, 
which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will fight against thee with the 
sword of my mouth.” The contagion reached the faithful Church of 
Thyatira, as appears from these words :—“ Thou sufferest that woman 
Jezebel to seduce my servants to commit fornication. But unto, &e, as 
many as have not this doctrine, and have not known the depths of Sa- 
tan, I will put upon you none other burden.” In Sardis “a few names 
only had not defiled their garments ;” the generality of Christians there 
had, it seems, ‘‘a name to live and were dead:” but the fall of the 
Laodiceans was universal. Before they suspected it, they had all, it 
seems, slidden back into the smooth, downward road that leads to hell. 
«| know thy works,” says Christ, “I would thou wert cold or hot. So 
then, because thou art lukewarm, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” 


Like those who stand complete merely in notions of imputed righteous. | 


ness, “thou sayest, I am rich, d:c, and have need of nothing ; and knowest 
not that thou art wretched, and poor, and blind, and naked,” Rey. ii, 3. 
Can we read this sad account of the declension and falling away of 
the saints without asking the following questions: (1.) If backsliding and 
apostasy were the bane of the primitive Church, according to our Lord’s 
doctrine ; and if he did not promise to any of those backsliders that vic- 
torious, almighty grace would certainly bring them back; what can we 
think of Zelotes’ doctrine, which promises infallible perseverance, and 
insures finished salvation to every backsliding, apostatizing believer? (2.) 


If the primitive Church, newly collected by the Spirit, and sprinkled 
by the blood of Christ, guided by apostolic preachers, preseryed by the — 


salt of persecution, and guarded by miraculous powers, through which 
apostates could be “given to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,” 
(witness the case of -Ananias, Sapphira, and the incestuous Corinthian :) 
if the primitive Church, I say, with all these advantages, was in such 
danger by the falling away of the saints, as to require all those reproofs 
and threatenings from Christ himself; is it not astonishing that whole 
bodies of Protestant believers should rise in our degenerate days to such 
a pitch of unscriptural assurance, as to promise themselves, and one 
another, absolute, infallible perseverance in the Divine favour? And (3. 
If the apostate Nicolas, once “‘a man of honest report, full of the Holy 
Ghost and wisdom,” but afterward (it seems) the ringleader of the Nico- 
laitans ;—if Nicolas, I say, went about to “lay a stumbling block before” 
Christians, by teaching them that fornication would neyer endanger 
their finished saivation; does Zelotes mend the matter, when he 
insinuates withal, that fornication, yea, adultery, and, if need be, mur- 
der, will do Christians good, and even answer the most excellent ends 
for them ? 
Consider we next what were St. John’s thoughts of Antinomian apos- 


tates. He had such a sight of the mischief which their doctrine did, 


and would do in the Church, that he declares, “'This is Love, that we 
walk after his commandments. ‘This is the commandment, that ye have 


heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. For many deceivers 


are entered into the world, who confess not [practically] that Jesus 


EE —— ll oe hr 


YUIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 155- 
Christ is come in the flesh,” to destroy the works of the devil who deny 
Christ in his holy doctrine ; and among other dangerous absurdities will 
even give you broad hints that you may commit adultery and murder 
without ceasing to be God’s dear children. But believe them not. “Look 
to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought. 
Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the [practical] doctrine of 
Christ, hath not God, &c. If there come any unto you, and bring 
not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God 
speed,” 2 John, 6-10. Again: “ He that saith, I know him, and keep- 
eth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not inhim. These 
things have I written unto you, concerning them that seduce you, 1 John 
i, 4, 26. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does right- 
eousness is righteous, &c. He that committeth sin is of the devil, &c. 
In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil,” 
1 John iii, 7, &c. 

When, in the text quoted above, St. John says, “« They went out from 
us, but they were not all of us,” what a fine opportunity had he of add- 
ing, “If they are elect they will 1vraLirety come back to us.” But, 
as he believed not the modern “ doctrines of grace,” he says nothing 
either for Calvin’s reprobation, or Dr. Crisp’s election. Nor does he 


_ drop the least hint about a “day of God’s power,” in which changeless 


love was infallibly to bring back one of all those backsliders, to make 
him sing louder the praises of free, sovereign, victorious grace. 

Although I have frequently mentioned St. Paul’s thoughts concerning 
fallen believers, I am persuaded that the reader will not be sorry to see 
them balanced with St. James’ sentiments on the same subject. 


I. Il. 
St. Paul’s account of St. James’ account of 
BACKSLIDERS. UNFAITHFUL BELIEVERS. 


Alexander the coppersmith (who 
was once a zealous Christian, see 
Acts xix, 33,) did me much evil; 
the Lord reward him according to 
his works. No man [i. e. no be- 
lever] stood with me ; but all for- 
sook me: I pray God that it may 
not be laid to their charge, 2 Tim. 
iv, 14,16. I fear lest, when I come, 
I shall not find you such as I would 
—lest there be debates, envyings, 
wraths, strifes, backbitings, whis- 
perings, swellings, tumults; and lest 
my God humble me among you, 
and that I shall bewail many who 
have sinned already, and have not 


repented of the uncleanness, and 


fornication, and lasciviousness which 


My brethren, &c, if there come 
unto-your assembly a man in goodly 
apparel, and also a poor man in 
vile raiment, and ye have respect 
to him that weareth the gay cloth- 
ing, &c, are ye not partial? We. 
But ye have despised the poor, &c. 
If ye have respect to persons ye 
commit sin, &c, for whosoever [of 
you] shall keep the whole law, and 
yet offend in one point, he is guilty 
of all. From whence come wars 
among you? Come they not even 
of your lusts? &c. Ye adulterers 
and adulteresses, know ye not that, 
é&c, whosoever will be a friend of 
the world, is the enemy of God? 
James ii, 1, &c; iv, 1, 4. 


they have committed, 2 Cor. xii, 20, 21. Not forsaking the assembling ~ 


of ourselves together as the manner of some is, &c. 


For if we sin wil- 


fully [as they do] there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain 
fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour 


“eae 
the adversaries, &c, [especially him] who hath trodden under foot the 
Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the coyenant, wherewith he 
was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of 
grace, Heb. x, 25, &c. Many [fallen believers] walk, of whom I have 
told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are enemies of 
the cross of Christ ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly 
—and who mind earthly things. For all [comparatively speaking] seek 
their own, and not the things which are Jesus Christ’s, Phil. ii, 18; nu, 21. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews is a treatise against apostasy, and of 
consequence against Calvinian perseverance. As a proof of it, I refer 
the reader to a convincing discourse on Heb. ii, 3, published by Mr. 
Olivers. The whole Epistle of St. Jude, and the second of St. Peter, 
were particularly written to prevent the falling away of the saints, and 
to stop the rapid progress of apostasy. The Epistle of St. Jude, and 2 
Peter ii, agree so perfectly, that one would think the two apostles had 


156 EQUAL CHECK. 


compared notes : witness the following parallel :— 


St. Peter’s description of sNTINo- 
MIAN APOSTATES. 

They have forsaken the right 
way ; following the way of Balaam, 
who loved the wages of unrighteous- 
ness, 2 Pet. ii, 15. 

Spots are they and blemishes, 
sporting themselves with their own 
deceivings, while they feast with 
you, ver. 13. 

They walk after the flesh in the 
lust of uncleanness, ver. 10. 

They speak great swelling words 
of vanity, they promise them [whom 
they allure] liberty, while they them- 
selves are the servants of corrup- 
tion, verses 18, 19. 

As natural brute beasts, &c, they 
speak evil of the things that they 
understand not, [especially of the 
perfect law of liberty,| and shall 
utterly perish in their own corrup- 
tion, ver. 12. 

Wells without water, clouds that 
are carried with a tempest—beguil- 
ing unstable souls—to whom the mist 
of darkness is reserved for ever, 
verses 14,17. [How far was St. 
Peter from soothing any of those 
backsliders by the smooth doctrine 
of their necessary infallible return !} 

[St Peter indirectly compares 
them to] the angels that sinned 
[whom] God spared not, but cast 


Il. ‘ 
St. Jude’s description of aNTINO- 
MIAN BACKSLIDERS. 

These be they who separate them. 
selves. They ran greedily after the 
error of Balaam for reward, Jude, 
verses 19, 11. 

These are spots in your feasts of 
charity, when they feast with you; 
feeding themselves without fear, 
verse 12, 

Filthy dreamers—walking after 
their own lusts, verses 8, 16. 

Their mouth speaketh great swell. 
ing words :—creeping in wnawares 
[i. e. insinuating themselves into 
rich widows’ houses] having men’s 
persons in admiration, verses 4, 16. 

These speak evil of those things 
which they know not [especially of 
Christ’s law. ] But what they know 
naturally, as brute beasts, in those 
things they corrupt themselves, ver. 
aCe ; 

Clouds they are without water, 
carried about of winds, trees whose 


a lt al 


fruit withereth, &c ; wandering stars, — 


to whom is reserved the blackness 
of darkness for ever, verses 12, 13. 


| How far was St. Jude from rocking” 
any of those apostates in the cradle — 


of infallible perseverance !] ; 

[St. Jude compares them to] the 
angels who kept not their first estate, 
but left their own habitation, &c, 


a4 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 157 


I. II. 
down to hell, and delivered into reserved in everlasting chains under 
chains of darkness, to be reserved darkness unto the judgment of the 
unto judgment, ver. 4. great day, ver. 6. 

From this remarkable parallel it is evident that the apostates described 
by St. Peter, and the backsliders painted by St. Jude, were one and the 
same kind of people: and by the following words it appears that all 
those backsliders really fell from the grace of God, and denied the Lord 
that bought them. 

Even denying the Lord that Ungodly men, turning the grace 
bought them, and bring upon them- of our God into lasciviousness, and 
selves swift destruction, &c, whose denying [in works at least] the only 
&c, damnation slumbereth not, 2 Lord God, and our Lord Jesus 
Pet. ii, 1. Christ, [as Lord, Lawgiver, or 

Judge,] Jude 4. 

St. Peter more or less directly describes these backsliders, in the same 
epistle, as people who have “forgotten that they WERE PURGED from 
their old sins’—-who do not “give all diligence to add to their faith 
virtue”—who do not “make their calling and election sure”—who, 
“after they have rscarep the poilutions of the world through the know- 
Ltepc¢e of our Lord Jesus Christ, [i. e. through a true and living faith, ] 
are again entangled therein, and overcome; whose latter end is worse 
than the beginning—who, after they have KNowNn THE way of righteous- 
ness, turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them,” and verify 
the proverb, «The sow that was wasHeD is turned to her wallowing 
in the mire.’ 

Here is not the least hint about the certain return of any of those 
backsliders, or about the good that their grievous falls will do either to 
others or to themselves, On the contrary, he represents them aii as 
people that were in the high road to destruction: and, far from giving 
us an Antinomian innuendo about the final perseverance of all blood- 
bought souls, i. e. of the whole number of the redeemed, he begins his 
epistle by declaring that those self-destroyed backsliders “denied the 
Lord that Boucur them,” and concludes it by this seasonable caution : 
«There are in our own beloved brother Paul’s epistles things [it seems, 
about the election of grace, and about justification without the works of 
the law] which they that are unlearned (auadeis, untaught in the Scrip- 
tures) and unstable, wrest, é&c, unto their own destruction. Ye, there- 
fore, beloved, seeing ye Imow these things before, [being thus fairly 
warmed] beware lest yz aso, being led away with the error of the 
wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the 
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ ;” which is the best method not to 
fall from grace—the only way to inherit the blessing, with which God 
will crown the faithfulness and genuine perseverance of the saints. 

I read the heart of Zelotes; and seeing the objection he is going to 
start, | oppose to it this quotation from Baxter: “ To say that then their 


- faith (which works by faithful love) does more than Curis did, or Gon’s 


GRACE, is a putrid cavil. Their faith is no efficient cause at all of their 
pardon or justification ; it is but necessary, receptive qualification. He 
that shuts the ‘window, causeth darkness ; but it is sottish to say that he 
who opens it, does more than the sun to cause light, which he causeth 


158 EQUAL CHECK. [Parr 


not at all; but removeth the impediment of reception; and faith itself 
is God’s gift,”—as all other talents are, whether we improve them or not. 
1 should lose time, and offer an insult to the reader’s understandi 
were I to comment upon the preceding scriptures ; so great is their per- 
spicuity and number. But I hope I shall not insult his candour by pro- — 


posing to him the following queries: (1.) Can Zelotes and Honestus be 


judicious Protestants, I mean consistent defenders of Bible religion, if 

the one throw away the weights of the second scale, while the other 

overlooks those of the first? (2.) Is it not evident that, according to the 

Scriptures, the perseverance of the saints has two causes: Tue First 

free grace and Divine faithfulness ; and rue szconp free will and human 

faithfulness produced, excited, assisted, and nourished, but not necessitated 

by free grace? (3.) With respect to the capital doctrine of perseverance 

also, does not the truth lie exactly between the extremes into which 

Zelotes and Honestus perpetually run? And (dast/y) is it not clear that 

if Candidus will hold “the truth as it is in Jesus,” he must stand upon 
the line of moderation, call back Zelotes from the east, Hones‘us from 
the west, and make them cordially embrace each other under the Serip- 

ture meridian? There the kind Father falls upon the neck of the return- 

ing prodigal, and the heavenly bridegroom meets the wise virgins. There 
free grace mercifully embraces free will, while free will humbly stoops 
at the footstool of free grace. There “the sun goes down no more by 
day, nor the moon by night ;” that is, the two Gospel axioms, which are 
the great doctrinal lights of the Church, without eclipsing each other, 

shine in perpetual conjunction, and yet in continual opposition. ‘There 
their conjugal, mysterious, powerful influence gladdens the New Jerusa- 
lem, fertilizes the garden of the Lord, promotes the spiritual vegetation 
of all the trees of righteousness which line the river of God, and gives a 
Divine relish to the fruits of the Spirit which they constantly bear. There, 
as often as free grace smiles upon free will, it says, “ Be faithful unto 
death, and I will give thee a crown of life ;” and as often as free will 
sees that crown glitter at the end of the race, it shouts, Grace! free 
grace unto it! a great part of our faithfulness consisting in ascribing to 
grace all the honour that becomes the rirsr cause of all good—the 
ORIGINAL of all visible and invisible excellence. 

Perseverance must close our race, if ever we receive the prize; let 
then the Scriptural account of it close my Scales. But before J lay them 
by, I must throw in two more grains of Scriptural truth ; lest the reader 
should think that I have not made good weight. If I thought Zelotes to 
be a gross Antinomian, and Honestus an immoral moralist; and that 
they maliciously tear the oracles of God in pieces; I would make them 
full weight by the two following scriptures :— 


II. 


The wrath of God is revealed I testify, dc, that if any man — 


from heaven against all ungodli- shall take away from the words ad 

ness, and unrighteousness of men, the book of this prophecy [mu chy 

who hold the truth [or a part of more if he take away from t 

it] in unrighteousness, Rom. i, 18. words of every book in the Old and 
New Testament] God shall take 

his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the 

things which are written in this book, Rev. xxii, 18, 19. 


‘THIRD. SCRIPTURE SCALES. 15S 


But considering Zelotes and Honestus as two good men, who sincerely 
fear and serve God in their way, and being persuaded that an injudicious 
fear of a Gospel axiom, and not a wilful aversion to the truth, makes 

: them cast a veil over one half of the body of Bible divinity; I dare not 
_ admit the thought that those severe strictures are adapted to their case. 
- I shall therefore only ask, whether they cannot find a suitable reproof in 
the following texts :— 

I. Il. 

I am against the prophets, saith Ye have have made the word of 
the Lord, that steal my word [con- God [contained No. 1.] of none 
tained No. 2.] every one from his effect by your tradition, Matt. xv, 
neighbour, Jer. xxii, 30. 6. [Equally dismembering Chris- 

tianity, ye still help the adversaries 
of the Gospel to put in practice their pernicious maxim, Divide and 
conquer. And who requires this at your hands? Who will give you 
thanks for such services as these ?] 


— 


SECTION IV. 


A Scriptural plan of reconciliation between Zelotes and Honestus ; being 
a double declaration to guard equally the two Gospel axioms, or the 
doctrines of free grace and free obedience—Bishop Beveridge saw the 
need of guarding them both—Gospel ministers ought equally io defend 
them—An answer to Zelotes’ objections against the declaration which 
guards the doctrine of free obedience—An important distinction 
between a primary and secondary trust in causes and means—Some 
observations upon the importance of the second Gospel axiom— Which 
extreme appeared greater to Mr. Baxter, that of Zeloies, or that of 
Honesitus—The author’s thoughts upon that delicate subject. 


I nave hitherto pointed out the opposite errors of Zelotes and Hones- 
tus, and shown that they consist in so maintaining one part of the truth 
as to reject the other; in so holding out the glory of one of the Gospel 
axioms as to eclipse the other. I now present the reader with what 
appears to me a fair, Scriptural, and guarded plan of reconciliation be- 
‘tween themselves, and between all good men, who disagree about the 
doctrines of faith and works—of free grace and obedience. The declara- 
tion which the Rev. Mr. Shirley desired the Rev. Mr. Wesley to sign 
at the Bristol conference, (in 1770,) gives me the idea of this plan; nay, 
the first part of it is nothing but that declaration itself, guarded and 
strengthened by some additions in brackets. 
J ; IT IS PROPOSED: 
Fi I. Il. 
That the preacherswhoaresup- § That the preachers who are sup- 
ed to countenance the Pharisaic posed to countenance the Antino- 
‘error of Honestus shall sign the mian error of Zelotes, shal] sign the 
_ following anti-Pharisaic declaration, following anti-Solifidian declaration, 
which guards the doctrine of faith which guards the doctrine of obe- 
and free grace without bearing hard dience and free will, without vear 


160 
I 


upon the doctrine of obedience and 
free will ; and asserts the free, gra- 
tuitous justification of a sinner in 
the day of conversion and afierward, 
without denying the gracious, re- 
munerative justification of a be- 
liever, who, in the day of trial, and 
afterward, keeps the faith that 
works by love. 

Whereas the doctrinal points 
in the Minutes of a conference, 
held in London, August 7, 1770, 
have been understood to favour [the 
Pharisaic] justification [of a sinner] 
by works ; now the Rev. John Wes- 
ley, and others assembled in con- 
ference, do declare that we had no 
such meaning; and that we abhor 
the doctrine of [a sinner’s] justifi- 
cation by works, as a most perilous 


and abominable doctrine: and as’ 


the said Minutes are not [or do not 
appear to some people] sufficiently 
guarded in the way they are ex- 
pressed, we hereby solemnly de- 
clare, in the sight of God, that [as 
sinners—before God’s throne—ac- 
cording to the doctrine of first 
causes—and with respect to the 
first covenant or the law of innocence, 
which sentences all sinners to de- 
struction] we have no trust or con- 
fidence but in the [mere mercy of 
God, through the sole righteousness 
and] alone merits of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, for justifica- 
tion, or salvation, either in life, death, 
or the day of judgment: andthough 
no one is a real Christian—believer, 
(and consequently, though no one 
can be saved [as a believer] who 
does not good works where there 
is time and opportunity,) yet our 


*T beg the reader would pay a peculiar attention to what precedes and follow; 

I myself would condemn it, as subversive of the doctrine of grace, 
and Pharisaical, if I considered it as detached from the context, and not 
or explained by the words in Italics, upon which the gréatest stress is to be laid. 
If Zelotes has patience to read on he will soon see how the secondary trust in 
the obedience of faith, which I here contend for, is reconcilable with our primary 


this clause. 


trust in Christ. 


EQUAL CHECK. 


Il. 
ing hard upon the doctrine of faith — 
and free grace; and asserts the 
gracious, remunerative justification 
of a believer in the day of trial, an 
afterward, without denying the free, 
gratuitous justification of a@ sinner — 
in the day of conversion, and after- 
ward. 


Whereas the books published 
against the said Minutes have been 
understood to favour the present, 
inamissible, and eternal justifica- 
tion of all fallen believers before 
God, that is, of all those who, hav- 
ing made shipwreck of the faith’ 
that works by obedient love, live in 
Laodicean ease ; and, if they please, 
in adultery, murder, or incest ; now 
the Rev. Mr. **** and others do 
declare that we renounce such 
meaning, and that we abhor the doc- 
trine of the Solifidians or Antino- 
mians as a most perilous and abo- 
minable doctrine: and as the said — 
books are not [or do not appear to 
some people] sufficiently guarded, 
we hereby solemnly declare, in the 
sight of God, that [as penitent, obe- 
dient and persevering believers—be- 
fore the Mediator’s throne—accord- 
ing to the doctrine of second causes" 
—and with respect tothe second co. 
venant, or the law of Christ, which 
sentences all his impenitent, disobe- 
dient, apostatizing subjects to de- 
struction] we haye no trust or con- 
fidence,* but in the truth of our 
repentance toward God, and in the 
sincerity of our faith in Christ for 
justification or salvation in the day 
of conversion and afterward ;—no 
trust, or confidence, but in our fina 


guarde 


-THIRD.| 
I 


works have no part in [properly] 
meriting or purchasing our salva. 
tion from first to last, either in whole 
or part; [the best of men, when 
they are considered as sinners, 
being justified freely by God’s 
grace, through the redemption that 
is in Jesus Christ, Rom. iu, 24.] 


SCRIPTURE SCALES. 


161 
II. 


perseverance in the obedience of 
faith, for justification, or salvation 
in death, and in the day of judg- 
ment ; because no one is a real be- 
liever under any dispensation of 
Gospel grace, and of consequence 
no one canbe saved who does not 
good works, i. e. who does not truly 
repent, believe, and obey, as there is 


time, light, and opportunity. Nevertheless, our works, that is, our 
repentance, faith, and obedience, have no part in properly meriting or pur- 
chasing our salvation from first to last, either in whole or in part; the 
properly meritorious cause of our eternal, as well as intermediate and 
initial salvation, beg only the merits, or the blood and righteousness 


of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 


The preceding declaration, which 
defends the doctrine of free grace, 
and the gratuitous justification 
and salvation of a sinner, is 
founded on such scriptures as 
these :— 


hy 

If Abraham were justified by 
works, he hath whereof to boast. 
To him that worketh not, but be- 
lieveth on him that justifieth the 
ungodly, his faith is imputed, &c. 
God imputeth righteousness without 
works. Not by works of righteous- 
ness which we have done, but of his 
mercy he savedus. By grace are ye 
saved, through faith ; and that not of 
yourselves, it is the gift of God ; not 
of works, lest any man should boast. 
By the deeds of the law shall no 
flesh be justified, &c. 


The preceding declaration, which 
defends the doctrine of free obe- 
dience, and the remunerative 
justification and salvation of a 
believer, is founded on such scrip- 
tures as these :— 

. Il. 

Was not Abraham our father 
justified by works? Ye see how 
by works a man is justified and not 
by faith only. We are saved by 
hope. In doing this thou shalt save 
thyself. He that endureth unto the 
end, the same shall be saved. He 
became the author of eternal sal- 
vation to them that obey him. This 
shall turn to my salvation through 
your prayer. With the mouth con- 
fession is made to salvation. By 
thy words thou shalt be justified. 
The doers of the law [of Christ] 
shall be justified, &c. 


And let none say that this doctrine has not the sanction of good men. 


Of a hifndred, whom Zelotes himself considers as orthodox, I shall only 
mention the learned and pious Bishop. Beveridge, who, though a rigid 
Calvinist in his youth, came, in his riper years, to the line of moderation, 
which I recommend, and stood.upon it when he wrote what follows, in 
his “Thoughts upon our Call and Election.” (Third Edition, page 297.) 
“‘ What-then should be the reason that so many should be called and 
invited to the chiefest good, and the highest happiness their natures are 
capable of; yet so few of them should mind and prosecute it so as to be 
chosen or admitted to the participation of it? What shall we ascribe it 
to? The will and pleasure of almighty God, as if he delighted in the 
Tuin of his creatures, and therefore although he calls them, te would 
Vor. II. 11 


162 EQUAL CHECK. Parr 


not have them come unto him? No: that cannot be: teem his revealed, 
will, which is the only rule that we are to walk by, he has told us the 
contrary in plain terms, and has confirmed it too with an oath, saying, 
“ As [ live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but. uvdantl 
should turn from his ways and live,” Ezek. xxxiii, 11. And elsewhere 
he assures us that he “would have all men to be saved, and come tothe — 
knowledge of the truth,” 1 Tim. ii, 4. And therefore if we believe — 
what God says, nay, if,we believe what he has sworn, we must needs — 
acknowledge that it is his will and pleasure that as many as are called 
should be allgchosen and saved : and indeed if he had no mind we should 
come when we are called to him, why should he call us all to come? 
Why has he given us his word, his ministers, his ordinances ; and all to” 
invite and oblige us to repent and turn to him; if after all he has 
resolved not to accept of us, nor would have us come at all? Farbeit — 
from us that we should have such hard and unworthy thoughts of the great — 
Creator and Governor of the world; especially considering that he has 
told us the contrary, as plainly as it was Poa to express his mind ; 
unto us.’ 

Then the bishop mentions five reasons why many are called but fw: 
are chosen: and he closes them by these words, (page 310 :) “ The last 
reason which our Saviour gives in this parable, is because, of those who — 
are called, and come too at the call, many come not aright, which he — 
signifies by the man that came without the wedding garment: where, : 
although he mentions but one man, yet under that one is comprehended 
all of the same kind, even all such persons as profess to believe in : 
Christ, and to expect salvation from him, yet will not come up to the 
terms which he propounds in the Gospel to them, even to “ walk worthy 
of the vocation wherewith they are called,’ Eph. iv, 1. And indeed — 
this is the great reason of all, why of so many, who are called, there — 
are go few chosen, because there are so few who do all things which — 
the Gospel requires of them. Many, like Herod, will do many things; — 
and are almost persuaded to be Christians, as Agrippa was, &c. Some 
are all for the duties of the first table without the second, others for the 
second without the first. Some [like heated Honestus] are altogether 
for obedience and good works without faith in Christ: others [like heated — 
Zelotes] are as much for faith in Christ, without obedience and 
works. Some [like mere moralists] would do all themselves, as if 
Christ had done nothing for them: others [like mere Solifidians] fancy — 
‘that Christ has so done all for them, that there is nothing left for them 
.to do: and so between both sorts of people [between the followers of — 
Honestus, and those of Zelotes] which are the far greater parts of those — 
who are called, either the merits or else the laws of Christ are slighted 
and contemned. But is this the way to be saved? No, surely.” P 

Hence it is evident, that if Bishop Beveridge be right here, the saving — 
truth lies exactly between the mistake of Zelotes and the error of Honestus. _ 
Now if this be the true state of the question, is it possible to propose a plan 
of reconciliation more Scriptural than that which so secures the merits of — 
Christ as not indirectly to overthrow his laws, and,so enforces his laws 
as not indirectly to set aside his merits? And is not this effectually 
‘done in the reconciling declarations? Do they not equally guard the two — 
‘Gospel axioms? Do they not with impartiality defend free grace and — 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 163 


free obedience? And might not peace be restored to the Church upon 
such a Scriptural, rational, and moderate plan of doctrine ? 

I fear that a /asting reconciliation upon any other plan is impossible : 
for the Gospel must stand upon its legs, (the two Gospel axioms,) or it 
must fall. And if Satan, by transforming himself into an angel of light, 
prevail upon good, mistaken men to cut off one of these legs, as if it 
were useless or mortified; some good men, who are not yet deceived, 
will rise up im its defence. So sure, therefore, as “the gates of hell 
shall never prevail against the Church of the living God—the pillar and 
ground of the truth,” there shall always be a succession of judicious, 
zealous men, disposed to hazard their life and reputation in the cause of 
Gospel truth, and ready to prevent the mystical ark from being overset 
on the right hand or on the left. If a pious Crisp, for example, push it 
into the Antinomian ditch, for fear of the Pharisaic delusion ; a pious 
Baxter will enter his protest against him: and if a Taylor throw it into 
the Pharisaic ditch, for fear of the Antinomian error; God will raise up 
a Wesley to counterwork his design. Nay, a Wesley is a match for a 
benevolent Taylor, and a seraphic Hervey ; and I hope, that should Mr. 
Shirley ever desire him to sign an anti-Pharisaic declaration, he will not 
forget to desire Mr. Shirley to sign also an anti-Solifidian protest : every 
Gospel minister being an equal debtor to both axioms. Nor can I con- 
ceive why Mr. Shirley should have more right* solemnly to secure the 
first axiom, than Mr. Wesley has solemnly to guard the second. 

But leaving those two divines, I return to Zelotes, who seems very 
much offended at my saying, “ We have no trust nor confidence that any 
thing will stand us instead of repentance, faith, and obedience.” An 
assertion this which implies, that (with respect to the second causes and 

secondary means) we place a secondary trust and confidence in the graces 
which compose the Christian character. But I ask, Wherein does the 
heresy of this doctrine consist? Do I renounce orthodoxy when I say 


* Mr. Wesley is too judicious a divine to sign a paper that leaves the second 
axiom quite unguarded. Accordingly we find that axiom guarded in these words 
of Mr. Shirley’s declaration: ‘‘ No one is a believer, (and consequently cannot be 
saved,) who doth not good works where there is time and opportunity.” Never- 
theless, this clause does not by far form so solemn a guard as might have been 
demanded upon so remarkable an occasion. Mr. Shirley, and the clergy that 
- accompanied him, might with propriety have been desired to remove the fears of 
those who signed the declaration which he had drawn up, by signing at least the 
following memorandum: ‘‘Forasmuch as Aaron, David, Solomon, Peter, and 
the incestuous Corinthian did not do good works when they, or any of them wor- 
shipped a golden calf, Milcom, and the abomination of the Zidonians,—denied 
Christ, or committed adultery, murder, or incest, we hereby solemnly declare, in 
the sight of God, that we abhor the doctrine of the Solifidians, who say that the 
above-mentioned backsliders had justifying, saving faith, while they committed 
the above-mentioned crimes; such a doctrine being perilous and abominable; be- 
cause it absolutely overturns the twelfth article of our Church, and encourages 
all Christians to make Christ the minister of sin, and to believe that they may - 
commit the most atrocious crimes, without losing their faith, their justification, 
and their title to a throne of glory.” 

If Mr. Shirley and his friends had refused to sign such a memorandum as this, 
the world would have had a public demonstration that Calvinism is the doctrine 
of Protestant indulgences ; and that it establishes speculative, and consequently 
makes way for practical Antinomianism in all its most flagrant immoralities, as 
well as in its most winning refinements. 


‘ 


164 EQUAL CHECK. t Pa 
that with respect to some second means, and some second causes, 
have no trust nor confidence but in my EyEs to see, in my EaRs to hear, 
and in my THROAT to swallow? Should I not be fit for Bedlam, if I 
trusted to see without eyes, to hear without ears, and to swallow without 
a throat? If I had not a trust that my shoes will answer the end of 
shoes, and my hat the end of a hat; may I not wisely put my shoes 
upon my head, and my hat on my feet? And if I have not a confidence 
that my horse will carry me better than a broomstick, may I not as well 
get upon a broomstick as on horseback? What would Zelotes think of 
me, if I did not trust that bread will nourish me sooner than poison, and 
that fire will warm me better than ice? Is it not a branch of wisdom 
to trust every, thing, just so far as it deserves to be trusted; and a piece 
of madness to do otherwise ? 

O ye admirers of Zelotes’ gospel, come and I will explain to you all 
my supposed error. I trust only and solely in God as the first and cap- 
ital cause, and in Christ as the first and capital means of my present 
- and eternal salvation. But beside this primary trust, I have a thousand 
inferior trusts. Take a few instances: I have a sure trust and confi- 
dence that the Bible will farther me in the way to eternal salvation, more 
than the Koran: baptism more than circumcision: the Lord’s Supper 
more than the Jewish passover: the house of God more than the play 
house : praying more than cursing : repentance, faith, hope, charity, and 
perseverance more, far more than impenitency, unbelief, despair, uncha- 
ritableness, and apostasy. 

If I am a heretic for saying that something beside Christ is condu. 
cive to salvation, and of consequence may, in its place and degree, be 
trusted in for salvation; is St. Paul orthodox when he exhorts the 
Philippians to “ work out their own salvation,” assures them that his afflic- 
tions shall “turn to his salvation through their prayers,” and writes to 
Titus, that “in porne the work of an evangelist he shall save himself 
and them that hear him ?” ?’ 

Again: will Christ stand to me instead of repentance? Has he not 
said himself, “ Except ve repent, ye shall perish?” Will he be to me 
instead of faith? Did he not assert the contrary when he declared, 
that “he who believeth not shall be damned?” Will he be instead of 
an evangelical obedience? Does he not maintain the opposite doctrine, 
where he declares that he will bid them “depart from him, who call 
him Lord, Lord, and vo nor the things which he saith?” Will he stand 
me instead of perseverance ? Has he not said himself that he will 
“deny them that deny him ;” that he will finally own us as his “ disci- 
ples, if we continue in his words ;” and that “he who endureth to the 
end, the same shall be saved?” Zelotes finds it easier to raise difficul. 
ties than to remove those which are thrown in his way. He comes, | 
therefore, with his mouth full of objections, against my second declara- 
tion. Let us lend him an ear, and give him an answer. 

Oxzszcrion I. «If, with respect to the doctrine of second causes, and 
second means of eternal salvation, you have no trust or confidence to be 
saved as a penitent, obedient, and persevering believer, but by true 
repentance, faith, obedience, and perseverance, you cannot repose your 
whole trust upon God alone ; nor can you give Christ all the glory of | 


your salvation.” . 


mum, ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. , 165 


fs To make God a second cause, and Christ a second means 
of salvation, 1s not to give them the glory: it is to pull them out of their 
throne, and make them stoop to an office unworthy of their matchless 
dignity. Ifthe king gave you a purse of gold, could you not give him 
all the glory of his generosity, without supposing that he was the labori- 
ous digger of the golden ore, the ingenious coiner of the gold, and the 
diligent knitter of the purse? If you complimented him in all these 
respects, lest he should not have all the glory, would you not pour con- 
tempt upon his greatness? And do you not see, that by a parity of rea- 
son, what you call “robbing God and Christ of their glory” is only 
refusing to dishonour them, by ascribing to them a dishonourable office ; 
I mean the office of a second cause, or of a secondary means of salvation ? 
Can you not conceive, that to give a general the honour of a sergeant, 
under pretence of giving him ail the honour, is to set him below an 
ensign, and rank him with a halberd bearer? Again: when you say, 
that in general, upon a journey, with respect to second causes and means, 
you have no trust or confidence but in your money, in the goodness of 
your horses and carriage, in the passable state of the roads, in the skill 
of your driver, &c, do you betray any mistrust of Divine Providence? 
On the contrary, does not your distinction of second causes and second 
means show that you reserve your primary trust or confidence for God, 
who is the first cause of your blessings; and for his providential care 
over you, which is the first means of your preservation? And if a 
pretender to orthodoxy charged you with Atheism or heresy for your 
assertion, would you not give him your vote to be an officer of the Pro- 
testant inquisition,—if the black tribunal, which totters in Spain, should 
ever be set up in England? 

Osxsection II. “Your first declaration indeed exalts Christ ; but the 
second uncrowns him, to crown our graces—yea, to crown ourselves as 
possessed of such and such graces; which is the rankest popery, and 
the very quintessence of Pharisaism.” 

Answer. How can my crowning repentance, faith, and obedience, 
with a Scriptural coronet, rob Christ of his peculiar crown? Are we not 
indebted to him both for our graces and for the coronet with which he 
rewards our acceptance and improvement of his favours? Would it be 
right in you to represent me as an enemy to the crown and king of 
England, for asserting that barons, earls, and dukes have received from 
him, or his predecessors, the right of wearing coronets, or secondary 
crowns? Is it not the glory of our sovereign to be at the head of a 
crowned peerage? And would you really honour him, if, on a coronation 
day, you secured the glory of his imperial crown, by kicking the coro- 
nets off the heads of all the peers who come to pay him homage ? 
Would he thank you for that ill-judged proof of your loyalty? Would 
he not reprove you for your unparalleled rashness? And think you 
that Christ will commend the Antinomian zeal, with which you set up 
the great image of finished salvation in the plain of mystical Geneva, 
upon a heap of the coronets, wherewith he and his apostles have crowned 
the graces of believers? Can you search the sacred records without 
finding there the doctrine which you represent as treasonable or here- 
‘tical? Did you never read, “O woman, great is thy faith! Tuy rarra 
hath saved thee?” And what is this but allowing believers to wear 


* 


166 | EQUAL CHECK. 


salvation coronei—a coronet this, which they will justly “c 
the throne” of the grace that gave it them, and offered it all the 
long to those who obstinately “ put it from them?’ Did you never read, 
“We are saved by hope: be faithful unto death, and I will give thee 
a crown of life: he is the author of eternal salvation to them that obey — 
him: he will give the crown of life to them that love him,” &c? Is not 
this a salvation coronet to the hopeful, faithful, obedient, loving believer? 
And if you throw my Scales away, and cry out, “ Arminian* Method. 
ism turned out rank popery at last!” think you there are no Bibles left 
in the kingdom? No people able to read such scriptures as these? 
“ Let no man beguile you of your reward through voluntary humility— 
fair speeches—and deceivableness of unrighteousness. Hold fast that 
which thou hast, that no man take thy crown,” on any pretext whatever, 
no, not on the most plausible of all pretexts, “ Pray, give me thy crown,™ 
. for it is not consistent with that of the Redeemer.” Who could suggest _ 
to good men so artful and dangerous a doctrine ? Who but the deceitful 
adversary that can as easily “ transform himself into an angel of light,” 
to rob us of our “ crown of righteousness,” as he formerly could trans- 
form himself into a serpent, to rob our first parents of their crown of 
innocence ? 

Ossecrion III. “ You may turn and wind as long as you please, but 
you will never be able to reconcile your doctrine with the doctrine of 
grace ; for if you have the least trust and confidence in your graces, you 
do not trust wholly in the Lord; you trust parily in ‘an arm of flesh,’ 
in direct opposition to the scripture, ‘Cursed is the man who truste 
in man, and maketh flesh his arm,’ Jer. xvii, 5.” : 

Answer. I grant that our doctrine can never be reconciled to what 
you call “the doctrines of grace,” because your partial doctrines of 
grace are irreconcilable with the holy, free, and equitable Gospel of 
Christ. But we can as easily reconcile the primary trust mentioned in 
our first declaration, with the secondary trust mentioned in the second, 
as you can reconcile my second Scale with the first. Our secondary 
confidence, which arises from the testimony of a good conscience, no 
more militates in our breasts against our primary confidence, which 
arises from the love of Christ, than our regard for the queen excludes 
our respect for the king. In mystic Geneva indeed they teach, to .the 
honour of the king, that the royal spouse is all filthy; but im our Jeru- 
salem we assert that “she is all glorious,” ‘and that “the king greatly 
desires her beauty.” To uncrown her, therefore, and load her with 
infamy, can never be the way of honouring and pleasing our Melchisedec. — 

With respect to the passage which you produce from Jeremiah, the 
sense of it is fixed by what immediately follows :—* And whose heart 


departeth from the Lord.” These words show that the trust forbidden 
in that scripture is only such a trist in man and things as makes our — 
hearts depart from the Lord. Now this can never be the trust and 

confidence mentioned in our second declaration: for in both declarations ; 
we secure to God, as the first cause, and to Christ, as the first means, 

all the glory which is worthy of the first cause, and of the first means: 
and, I repeat it, if you ascribe to the Lord any other glory, you insult 
him as much as you would do a prince, if you gave him the glory which 


* The title of a Calvinistic pamphlet published against the Fourth Check. 


ED § 


children, and of making good sauces. 
Again: there is no medium between some degree of trust, and the 


is ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 167 
ins belongs to his consort or his cock ;—I mean the glory of bearing fine 


| uimost degree of distrust. Now if the scripture which you preduce 
: absolutely forbids every degree of inferior trust in man or things, it 
follows that the more full we are of distrust and diabolical suspicions, 
: __ the more godly we are. And thus, for fear of putting any degree of 
secondary trust in man or in things, we must mistrust all our wives as 
_ _adulteresses, all our friends as traitors, all our neighbours as incendiaries, 
all our servants as murderers, and all our food as poison. But if thie 
fair consequence of your doctrine stand, what becomes of charity, whick 
*thinketh no evil, but hopeth all things?” And if the words of Jeremiah 
are to be understood in your narrow sense, what becomes of Christ 
» himself, who reposed a degree of trust in man—yea, in Judas, while he 
counted him faithful? That expression of Job, therefore, “He [the 
Lord] putteth no trust [that is, no absolute trust] in his saints,” is to be 
understood so as not to contradict the words of St. Paul, “ He [the Lord] 
counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry ;” or the propheti- 
words of David concerning Christ and Judas, “ Yea, mine own familiar 
friend in whom I trusted, who did eat of my [multiplied] bread, hath 
‘lifted up his heel against me.” 

To conclude: if England smiles yet at the imbecility of the king, who 
durst not venture over London bridge, and wondered at those who trusted 
that fabric as a solid bridge; shall we admire Zelotes’ wisdom, who 
wonders at our having a Scriptural, inferior trust in the graces which 
form the Christian character? And shall we not count it an honour to 
be suspected of heresy, for “having a sure trust and confidence,” that 
true repentance, and nothing else, will answer for us the end of repent- 
ance? 'That true faith, and nothing else, will answer for us the end of 
faith? That evangelical obedience, and not an imputed righteousness, 
will answer for us the end of evangelical obedience? And that final per- 
severance, and not whims about “finished salvation,” will answer for 
us the end of final perseverance ? 

Having thus answered Zelotes’ objections against the declaration 
which guards the second Gospel axiom, I shall now present him with 
some observations upon the importance of that axiom :— 

(1.) The first axiom, or the doctrine of grace, holds forth chiefly what 
Christ has done; and the second axiom, or the doctrine of obedience, 
holds forth chiefly what we are to do. Now any unprejudiced person 
must own that it is as important for us to know our own work, as to 
know the work of another. (2.) In the day of judgment we shall not 
be judged according to Christ’s works and experiences, but according to 
our own. (3.) Thousands of righteous heathens, it is to be hoped, have 
been saved without knowing any thing of Christ’s external work ; but 
none of them were ever saved without knowing and doing their own 
work, that is, without working out their salvation with fear and trembling, 
according to their light. (4.) Most of the Jews that have been saved 
have gone to heaven without any explicit, particular acquaintance with 
Christ’s merits; (see Equal Check, vol. i, p. 456 ;) but none of them 
was ever saved without “fearing God and working righteousness.” 
(5.) To this day, those that are saved, three parts of the world over, 


168 ‘ EQUAL CHECK. 


are in general saved by the gracious light that directly flows from the 
second Gospel axiom, through Christ’s merits ; although they ever 
heard of his name. (6.) England and Scotland, where the redeeming 
work of Christ is gloriously preached, swarm nevertheless with practical | 
Antinom‘ans ; that is, with men who practically separate works from _ 
faith, and the decalogue from the creed. Now all these Gnostics follow 
the foolish virgins, and the unprofitable servant into hell, erying, Lord! 
Lord! and forgetting to do what Christ commands. (7.) We can never 
be too thankful for the light of both axioms; but, were I obliged to 
separate them, I had much rather obey with Obadiah, Plato, and Cor- 
nelius, than believe with Simon Magus, Nicolas, and “ Mr. Fulsome.” 

These, and the like observations appeared so weighty to judicious 
Mr. Baxter, that, in the preface to his Confession of Faith, p. 29, he 
says, “ The great objection is, that I ascribe too much to works. I shall af | 
now only say, &c, that I see many well-meaning, zealous men dividing fi 
our religion, [which is made up of the two Gospel axioms, ] and running 
into two desperate extremes. One sort [at the head of whom is Zelotes 
by the heat of opposition to popery do seem to have forgotten that faith 
and Christ himself are but means, and a way for the revolting soul to. 
come home to God by; and thereupon place all the essence of their 
religion in bare believing ; so making that rHz wHox1x, which is but the 
door, or mEANs to better, even to a conformity of the soul to the image 
and will of God. Others [at the head of whom is Honestus] observing 
this error, flee so far from it as to make faith itself, and Christ, to be 
scarce necessary. So a man have God’s image, say they, upon his soul, 
what matter is it which way he comes by it? Whether by Christ, or by 
other means! And so they take all the history of Christ to be a mere 
accident to our necessary belief; and the precepts only of holiness to 
be of absolute necessity. The former contemn God under pretence of 
extolling Christ. The latter contemn Christ under pretence of extolling 
God alone. He that pretending to extol Christ or faith, degrades god- 
liness, thereby so far rejects God; and he that on pretence of extolling 
godliness, degrades faith, so far rejects Christ, &c. I therefore detest 
both these extremes—[that of Zelotes and that of Honestus.] But yet 
it being the former which I take to be the greater, and which too many ~ 
men of better repute give too much countenance to, in their inconsiderate 
disputes against works in justification, I thought I had a call to speak in 
so great a cause.” 

It appears, from this excellent quotation, that judicious Mr. Baxter 
gave the preference to the second Gospel axiom, and thought the doc- 
trine of Honestus less dangerous than that of Zelotes. For my part, 
though Zelotes thinks me partial, I kéep my Scales even: and according 
to the weights of the sanctuary which I have produced, I find that 
Zelotes and Honestus are equally wanting. I thank them both for em- 
bracing one axiom; I check them both for neglecting the other ; and if 
Zelotes deserves superior praise for maintaining the first axiom, I will 
cheerfully give him the first place’i in my esteem. I confess, however, 

that I am still in doubt about it, for two reasons: (1.) Zelotes preaches 
indeed the first Gospel axiom, for he preaches Christ and free grace : ” 
out, after all, for whom does he preach them? For every creature,ac- 
cording to the Gospel charter? No: but only for the little flock of the 


‘THIRD. | SCRIPTURE SCALES. 169 


“" rewardable elect. If you believe his gospel, there never was a single 


dram of free, saving grace in the heart of God; or one single drop of 
precious, atoning blood in the veins of Christ, for the immense herd of 
the reprobates. Before the beginning of the world they were all per- 
sonally appointed necessarily to sm and be damned. Thus, according 
to Zelotes’ doctrine, free grace and the first Gospel axiom are not only 
mere chimeras, with respect to a majority of mankind, but free wrath 
lords it with sovereign caprice over countless myriads of men, to whom 
Christ may, with the greatest propriety, be preached as a reprobating 
damner, rather than as a gracious Redeemer. (2.) I could better bear 
with Zelotes’ inconsistencies, if he only diminished the genuine cordial 
of free grace, and adulterated it with his bitter tincture of free wrath. 
But alas! he openly or secretly attacks the doctrine of sincere obe- 


» dience: he calls them “ poor creatures,” who zealously plead for it: 


he unguardedly intimates that they are out of the way of salvation: and 
(O! tell it not among the heathens!) he sometimes gives you deadly 
hints about the excellence of discbedience ; sin, he intimates, “ works 
for our good: it keeps us humble: it makes Christ more precious: it 
endears the doctrines of sovereign, rich, distinguishing grace: it will 
make us sing louder in heaven.” 

_ “You wrong me,” says Zelotes, “ you are a slanderer of God’s people, 
and a calumniator of Gospel ministers. I, for one, frequently enforce 
the ten commandments upon believers.” True, sir; but how do you 
do this? Is it not by insinuating more or less, sooner or later, as your 
moral audience and your pious heart can bear it, that the decalogue is 
not now a rule to be judged by, but only “a rule of life,” the breach of 
which will answer all the above-mentioned excellent ends in believers? 
And what is this but preaching Protestant indulgences, as I said before? 
When you do this, do you not exceed the popish distinction between 
yenial and mortal sins? Yea, do you not make all the crimes of fallen 
believers venial? Nay, more, do you not indirectly represent their 
grievous falls as profitable? And to seal up the delusion, do you not 
persuade the simple, wherever you go, that our works have nothing to 
do with our eternal justification before God? That our everlasting sal- 
vation is finished by Christ alone ; and that whoever believes fallen be- 


lievers will be condemned by their bad works, is an enemy to the Gospel, 


an Arminian, a Pelagian, a Papist, a heretic ? 

If this character of Zelotes be just, and if Honestus be a conscientious’ 
good man, who preaches Christ every sacrament day, and who enforees 
spiritual, sincere obedience, (i. e. true repentance, true faith, true hope, 
and true love to God and man, in all their branches ;) and who does it 
with sincerity, assiduity, and warmth, I cannot but think as favourably 
of him as I do of his antagonist. 

I must however do Zelotes the justice to say, that an appearance of 
truth betrays him into his favourite error. If he do not lay a Scriptural 
stress upon the indispensableness of obedience, it is chiefly for fear of 
“legalizing the Gospel,” and robbing God’s children of their comforts. 
See that fond mother, who prides herself in the tenderness she has for 
her children. She will not suffer the wind to blow upon them; the sun 
must never shine on their delicate faces ; no downy bed is soft enough 
no sweetmeats are sweet enough for them; lest they should know wean 


170 EQUAL CHECK. 


ness, they must always ride in the easiest of carriages; their tu 
be turned out of doors, if he venture to give them proper correctior 
all the day long they must be told what an immense estate they are soem, 
to, and how their father has put it out of his own power to cut off the 
entail. Above all, nobody must mention to them the duty they owe to 
him. Duty—that bad word duty must not abridge their privileges, and — 
stamp their obedience with legal and servile meanness. In a word, by 
her injudicious, though well-meant kindness, she unnerves their constitu- 
tions, spoils their tender minds, and brings deadly disorders upon them. 
Her fondness for her children is the very picture of Zelotes’ tender re- 
gard for believers. No duty must be pressed upon them as duty: no 
command insisted upon, no self denial ordered, lest the dear people 
should lose the sweetness of their Gospel liberty. And if at any time 
« Mr. Fulsome’s” humours call aloud for physic, it is given with so much ~ 
honey, that the remedy sometimes feeds the mortal disease. 

Honestus sees, and justly dreads the error of Zelotes: and to avoid 
it, he is so sparing of Gospel encouragements, that he deals chiefly (if 
not wholly) in severe precepts and hard duties. You may compare him 
to a stern father, who, under pretence of making his children hardy, and 
keeping them in proper subjection, makes them carry as heavy burdens 
as if they were drudging slaves, and threatens to disown them for every 
impropriety of behaviour. 

Not so a Gospel minister, who reconciles both extremes. He knows 
how to use sweets and bitters, promises and threatenings, indulgence 
and severity. He is like a wise and kind father, who does not spare 
the rod when his children want it; but nevertheless wins them by love 
as much as possible ;—who does not disinherit them for every fault, and 
yet does not put it out of his power to do it, if they take to a vicious 
course of life, and obstinately trample his paternal love under foot. 
Reader, who of the three is in the right, Zelotes, Honestus, or the Te- 
conciler ? 


SECTION V. 


The doctrines of free grace and free will are farther maintained agamst 
Honestus and Zelotes by a variety of Scripture arguments. 


I rtarrer myself that the harmonious opposition of the seriptures, 
produced in the preceding sections, demonstrates the truth of the Gos. 
pel axioms. But lest prejudice hinder Honestus and Zelotes from yield 
ing to conviction, I present them with some Scriptural arguments, which, 
like so many buttresses, will, I hope, support the doctrines of free grace 
and free will, and render them as firm as their solid basis,—rEason and 
REVELATION. I begin with the doctrine of free grace. 

1. How gladly would Honestus stoop to, and triumph in free ny 
if he considered the force of such scriptures! ‘“ Without me you can 
do nothing. What hast thou which thou hast not received,” in a remote 
or immediate manner? “ We are not sufficient of ourselves to think 
any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. Who hath 
first given him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? - of 
him, &c, are all things.” 4 


- 
THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 171 


2. We cannot do an action that is truly good without faith and love ; 
and the least degree of true faith and genuine Jove springs first from free 
grace; for “faith is the gift of God, love is the fruit of his Spirit:” and 
when the apostle wishes charity to his converts, he wishes it to them 
“ from God the Father, who is the author of every good and perfect 
gift.” Now if our every good thought, word, and work, spring from 
faith and love ; and if faith and love spring from God; is it not evident 
that he is the first cause of our genuine righteousness, as well as of 
our existence ? 

3. When God says, ‘“ Ask and you shall have,” does he not show 
himself the original of all that we want for body and soul, for time and 
eternity ? And if God owes us nothing, if “the help, that is done, upon 
earth, the Lord originally does it himself,” is it not the height of ingra- 
titude and pride to restrain from God, and arrogate to ourselves, the 
glory due to him.and his infinite perfections 2 

4. We are commanded “in every thing to give thanks.” But if 
grace be not the source of all the good we do or receive, does it not fol- 
low, that in some things the original glory belongs to us, and therefore 
we deserve thanks before God himself? And is not this the horrid sin 
of antichrist, who “sitteth as God in the temple of God,” and there 
receives Divine honours “ as if he were God ?” 

5. Does not reason dictate that God will not give his glory to 
another, and that even “the man who is his fellow,” must pay him 
homage? Is it not the Almighty’s incommunicable glory to be the first 
cause of all good, agreeably to those words of our Lord, “ There is none 
good [i. e..self good, and truly self righteous] but God,” from whom 
goodness and righteousness flow, as light and heat do from the sun? How 
dangerous then, how dreadful is the error of the self righteous, who are 
above stooping to Divine goodness, and giving it its due! Ifrebbing a 
Church of its ornaments is sacrilege, how sacrilegious is the pride of a 
Pharisee, who, by claiming original goodness, robs God’s grace of its 
indisputable honours, and God himself of his incommunicable glory ! 

6. To show Christians how ridiculous and satanic the pride of the 
self righteous is, I need only remind them that Christ himself— Christ 
the righteous” (as the Son of David) declined all self righteousness. 
Did he not call his works “the works that I do in my Father’s name,” 
or by my Father’s grace? And did he not, as it were, annihilate him- 
self, when he said, “ Why callest thou me Goon,” without any refer. 
ence to the Godhead, of which I am the living temple? “I can do 
nothing of myself. a speak not of myself, but the Father that 
dwelleth in me, he does the works. Learn of me to be lowly in heart ?” 
What real Christian can read such scriptures without learning to dis- 
claim all self righteousness, and to abhor Pharisaic dotages? If Hon- 
estus be a reasonable Christian I need say no more to reconcile him to 
free grace. 

I know not which of the two extremes is the most abominable, that of 
the Pharisee, who, by slighting free grace, will not allow God to be the 
first cause of all our good works; or that of the Antinomian, who, by 
exploding free will, indirectly represents the Parent of good as the first 
cause of all our wickedness. This last error is that of Zelotes, to whom 
I recommend the following arguments :— 


172 * EQUAL CHECK. | ie? 


z & ily 
1, All rationals (as such) are necessarily endued with free will, “a 


. * : Mal [A 
wise reason and conscience would be powers as absurdly bestowed 


upon them, as persuasiveness upon a carp, and a taste for music upon an ~ 


oyster. What are reason and conecience but powers, by which we dis- 
tinguish right from wrong, that we may choose the one and refuse 
the other? And how do they reflect upon God’s wisdom, who suppose 
that he gave and restored to man these powers, without giving him a 
capacity to use them? And what can this capacity be, if it be not free 
will? As surely then as wings and legs prove that eagles have a power 
to fly, and hares to run; whether they fly or run foward the sports. 
man’s destructive weapon, or from it; so surely do reason and con- 
science demonstrate that men are endued with liberty, i. e. have a 
power to choose, whether they make a right or a wrong choice. Again: 

2. What is a human soul? You justly answer, “It is a thinking, 
willing, accountable creature.” And | reply, from the very nature of our 
soul, then, it is evident that we are, and ever shall be, free-willing beings. 
For the moment souls have lost their power of thinking and willing 
freely, they are no longer accountable ; moral laws are as improper for 
them as for raging billows. None but fools would attempt to rule deli- 
rious persons, and mad men by penal laws. ‘The reason is plain : peo- 
ple stark mad, thinking freely no longer, are no longer free willers ; and 
being no longer free willers, they are no more considered as moral 
agents. So certain then as man is a reasonable, accountable creature, 
he is endued with free will: for all rationals under God are accountable, 
and all accountable beings have more or less power over themselves and 
iheir actions. “He [the Lord] himself made man from the beginning, 
and left him in the hand of his own counsel. If thou wilt keep the 
commandments, and perform acceptable faithfulness. He hath set fire 
and water before thee: stretch forth thy hand unto whether thou wilt. 
Before man is life and death, and whether him liketh shall be given him,” 
Ecclus. xv, 14, &c. The tempter therefore may allure, but cannot force 
us to do evil; and God himself so wisely invites, and so gently draws us 
to obedience, as not to turn the scale for us in an irresistible manner. 

3. O the absurdity of supposing that “God has appointed a day in 
which he will judge the world in righteousness,” if the world be not 
capable of making a right and wrong choice ; and if Christ, Adam or 
the devil absolutely turn the seale of our morals for us! O the blot upon 
God’s wisdom, when he is represented as rewarding men with heavenly 
thrones, for having done the good which they could no more ayoid domg 
than rivers can prevent their flowing! O the dishonour done to his jus- 
tice, when he is represented as sentencing men to everlasting burnings, 
for committing sin as necessarily as a leaden ball tends to the centre! 

4. If free grace do all in believers without free will, why does David 
say, “ The Lord is my helper?” Why does our Church pray, after the 
psalmist, “ Make haste to help me?” Why does St. Paul declare that 
“the Spirit itself* helpeth our infirmities?” Why did he not say, J can 


* The word in the original has a peculiar force: (cvvavriAap6averat.) Et ex- 
presses at once how God’s Spirit does his part (cvv) ‘‘with us,” and (avr) “over 
against us ;” like two persons that take up a burden together and carry it, the one 
at one end, and the other at the other end; or like a minister and a congregation, 
who join in prayer by alternately taking up the responses of the Church. 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 173 


do absolutely nothing, instead of saying, “I can do all things through 
the Lord who strengtheneth me ?” And when Christ had said, “ Without 
me ‘ye can do nothing,” why did he not correct himself, and declare that 
we can do nothing with him, and that he alone must do all? Nay, why 
does St. Paul apply to himself and others, when they work with God, 
the very same word that St. Mark applies to God, when he works with men? 
“ We are cuvepyoi, workers together with God,” 1 Cor. ii, 9. “The 
Lord cuvepysvros, working together with them,” Mark xvi, 20. . 

5. Do not all the promtszs, the performance of which is suspended 
upon some terms to be performed by us through Divine assistance, prove 
the concurrence of free grace with free will? When God says, “Seek, 
and you shall find. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Come unto 
me, and I will give you rest. Return to me, and I will return to you,” 
&c ; when God, I say, speaks this language, who does not see free 
grace courting and alluring free will? Free grace says, ‘Seek ye my 
face ;” and free will answers, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” On the 
other hand, unbelievers know that so long as their free will refuses to 
submit to the terms fixed by free grace, the promise miscarries, and God 
himself declares, ‘ Ye shall know my breach of promise,” Num. xiv, 34. 

6. As the promises, which free grace makes,to submissive free will, 
prove the doctrine of the Gospel axioms; so do the THREATENINGS, 
which anxious free grace denounces, lest it should be rejected by free 
will. ‘Take also two or three examples :—“I will cast them that com- 
mit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their 
deeds. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. He that 
believeth not shall be damned. If we sin wilfully, [1. e. obstinately, and 
to the last moment of our day of grace,] after we have received the 
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth [for us,] &c, a fiery indignation, 
which shall devour the adversaries,” &c. Who does not see here that 
free grace, provoked by inflexible free will, can, and will act the part of 
inflexible justice ? ; 

7. There is not one reproof, encomium, or exhortation in the Old or 
New Testament that does not support the capital doctrines of free grace 
or free will. When Christ says with a frown, “ How is it that you have 
no faith? O perverse generation, how long shall I suffer you? O 
generation of vipers, bring forth fruit meet for repentance. Have ye 
your heart yet hardened?” When he smiles and says, “‘ Well done, 
good and faithful servant.” When he marvels and cries out, “ Great is 
thy faith.” Or when he gives such gracious exhortations, “ Be not faith- 
less, but believing: come to the marriage: be faithful unto death: only 
believe.” When Christ, I say, speaks in this manner, is it not as if he 
expressed himself in such words as these: ‘“‘ My free grace tries every 
rational means to win your free will. I reprove you'for your sins, I 
commend you for your faith, I exhort you to repentance, I shame you 
into obedience, I leave no stone unturned to show myself the rational 
Saviour of my rational, free creatures ?” 

8. I may proceed one step farther, and say, There is not one com- 
mandment in the law, nor one direction in the Gospel that does not 
demonstrate the truth of this doctrine. For all God’s precepts and 
directions are for our good; therefore free grace gave them. Now 
-since God is wise as well as gracious, it follows that he gave his pre 


174, EQUAL CHECK. [part 


cepts and directions to free agents, that is, to frée-willing ‘creatures. 
Let a king, who has lost his reason, make a code of moral laws for ae 
or horses; let him send preachers into every mill in the kingdom to~ 
give proper directions to cog wheels, and to assure them that if they turn’ 
fast and right, they shall grind for the royal family; and, if they stop or 
turn wrong, they shall be cut to pieces and ground to saw dust. But 

let not the absurdity of a similar conduct be chatged upon God. 

9. Every humble confession of sin shows the various workings of free 
grace and free will: “I have sinned—I have done wickedly,” &e, is 
the language of free will sofiened by free grace. To suppose that these 
acknowledgments .are the language of free grace alone, is to suppose 
that free grace sins and does wickedly. And when we heartily join in 
such petitions as these, “Turn us, and we shall be turned: draw me, 
and [ will run after thee : bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise 
thy name: save, or I perish,” &c, do we not feel our free will endea- 
vouring to apprehend free grace? Is this heresy? Did not St. Paul 
maintain this doctrine in the face of the Church, and seal it with the 
account of his own experience, when he said, “I follow after, if that I 
may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of God ?” 

10. To conclude: there is not a damned spirit in hell that may not 
be produced as a living witness of the double doctrine which I defend. 
Why is Lucifer loaded with chains of darkness? Is it because there 
never was any free grace for him, and because free wrath marked him 
out for destruction, before he had personally deserved it? No: but 
because his free will “kept not the first estate” of holiness, in which 
God’s free grace had placed him. Why is Judas gone to his own 
place? Is it because the Holy Ghost spake an untruth when he said 
that (till the day of retribution comes) “God’s mercy is over all his 
works?” No: but because Judas’ free will was so obstinately bent 
upon “gaining the world,” that, according to our Lord’s declaration, 
‘he lost his own soul,” became a “son of perdition,” and, by “ denying 
in works the Lord that bought him, brought upon himself swift destruc. 
tion.” Now, if Judas himself cannot say, “ God’s free wrath sent me 
to hell, and not my free will; I am here in Adam’s place, and not in my 
own; I never rejected against myself the counsel of a gracious God; 
for, with respect to mr, the Father of mercies was always unmerciful— 
‘the God of all grace’ had never any saving grace :”—if Judas, I say, 
cannot justly utter these blasphemies, surely none can: and if none can, 
then every sinner in hell demonstrates the truth of the Gospel axioms, 
and is a tremendous monument of the vengeance justly taken on free 
will, for doing obstinately despite to the Spirit of free grace. 

11. But leaving Judas to experience the truth of this awful scripture, 
“«‘ The backslider in heart shall be filled with u1s own ways,” let your 
soul soar upon the wings of faith and reason to the happy regions where 
the spirits of just men made perfect shine like stars or suns in their 
Father’s kingdom. Ask them, “To whom and to what do you ascribe 
your salvation,?” and you hear them all reply, “Salvation is of the 
Lord. Not unto us, but to his name we ascribe glory. Of his own 
mercy he saved us, to the praise of the glory of his grace.” What a 
noble testimony is this to the doctrine of free grace! . 

12. Nor does the Lord stand less for their free will than they do for 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES 175 


his free grace. Prostrate yourselves before his everlasting throne ; and, 
with all becoming reverence, ask the following question, that you may 
be able to vindicate God’s righteous ways before unrighteous man. 
“Tet not the Lord be angry, and I will take upon me to speak unto the 
Lord. Didst thou admit those happy spirits into thy kingdom entirely 
out of partiality to their persons? If they are raised to glorious thrones, 
while damned spirits are cast into yonder burning lake, is it merely 
because absolute grace and absolute wrath made origina/ly all the differ- 
ence? In a word, is their salvation so of thy free grace that their free 
will had absolutely no hand in the matter ?” 

Methinks I hear “the Judge of all the earth” giving you the follow- 
ing answer, which appears to me perfectly agreeable to his sacred 
oracles :— 

*<O injudicious man, how canst thou be so ‘slow of heart to believe 
all that I and my prophets have said!’ Am not I a Judge as well asa 
Sayiour? Can I show myself a righteous Judge, and yet be partial in 
judgment? Nay, should I not be the most unjust of all judges, if from 
my righteous tribunal I distributed heavenly thrones and infernal racks 
out of distinguishing g grace and distinguishing wrath? Know that ‘all 
souls are mine,’ and that, i in point of judgment, ‘there is no respect of 
persons with me.’ In the great day ‘I judge,’ that is, I condemn or 
justify, I punish or reward ‘every man according to his own work, 
and consequently according to his free will; for if a work is not the 
work of a man’s free will, it is not his ake but the work of him that 
uses him as a tool, and works by his instrumentality. So certain then 
as the office of a gracious Saviour is compatible with that of a righteous 
judge, my capital doctrines of free grace and free will are consistent 
with each other. If these, therefore, ‘walk with me in white,’ know 
that it is ‘because they are worruy: for the righteous is MORE EXCEL- 
LENT than his neighbour. Like good and faithful servants, they occu. 
pied till I came; and Jo, I come, and my reward is with me.’ They 
have ‘kept the faith; and I have kept my promise. They have not 
finally forsaken me; and I have not finally forsaken them. ‘ They 
have kept the word of my patience; and I have kept them from the 
great tribulation.’ They have ‘ made themselves ready,’ (though some 
have done it only at the eleventh hour,) and I have admitted them to the 
heavenly feast. They have ‘done my commandments, and they are 
entered by the gates into the New Jerusalem.’ My free grace gave 
them their free will; their free will yielded to my free grace : and now 
my free grace crowns their faithfulness. They ‘were faithful unto 


death, and I have given them the crown of life.” Thus my free grace 


and mercy, which began the work of their salvatien, concludes it in 
conjunction with my truth and justice: and my free-willing people 
shout, Grace! grace! when they consider the top stone, as well as when 
they behold the foundation of their salvation. My free grace is aut tq 
them, and their free will is so much to me that ‘Tam sid ashamed to 
call them BRETHREN,’ and to acknowledge that ‘as the bridegroom 
rejoiceth over the bride, so do I rejoice over them, because w hen they | 
heard my voice, they knew the day of their Visitation, and did not harden 


their hearts’ to the last.” 


If Honestus and Zelotes candidly weigh the preceding arguments in 


176 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 
: r 


the balance of the sanctuary, they will, I hope, drop their prejudices 
against free grace and free will, and consent to a speedy, lasting recon- 
ciliation. But Zelotes is ready to say that there can be no reconcilia- 
tion between Honestus and himself, because he cannot conscience be 
reconciled even to me, who here act the part of a mediator; though I 
come nearer to “ the doctrines of grace” than Honestus does. Consider 
we then the capital objections of Zelotes: and if we can answer them 
to his satisfaction, we shall probably remove out of his way the strongest 
bars which the author of discord has fixed between him and Honestus. 


. 


SECTION VI. . 


Zelotes produces his first objection to a reconciliation with Honestus, 
taken from God’s foreknowledge—Our Lord is introduced as answer- 
ing for himself, and showing how his prescience is consistent with our 
liberty, and his goodness with the just destruction of those who obsii- 
nately sin away their day of initial salvation—The absurdity of sup- 
posing that God cannot certainly know future events, which depend 
upon the will of free agents, because we cannot. > 


Wuute Honestus says that he has no great objection to the doctrine 
of free grace, when it is stated in a rational and Seriptural manner, Ze- 
lotes intimates that he is still averse to the doctrine of free will; and 
declares that capifal objections are in his way, and that, till they are 
answered, he thinks it his duty equally to oppose Honestus and the re- 
conciler. Hear we then his objections, and let us see if they are as 
unanswerable as he supposes them to be. 

Oxsecrion I. “You want to frighten me from the doctrines of 
grace, and to drive into the heresy of the free willers, by perpetually 
urging that the personal, unconditional, and eternal rejection of the non- 

- elect is inconsistent with Divine mercy, goodness, and justice: but you 
either deny, or grant God’s foreknowledge. If you deny it, you are an 
Atheist : it being evident that an ignorant God is no God at all. If you 
allow it, you must allow that when God made such men as Cain and 
Judas he foreknew that they would certainly deserve to be damned; 
and that when he made them upon that foreknowledge, he made them 
that they might necessarily deserve to be damned. And is not this 
granting all that we contend for, namely, that God does make, and of 
consequence has an indisputable right of making ‘vessels of wrath,’ 
without any respect to works and free will? Is it not far better to say 
that we have no free will, than to rob God of his prescience ?” 

Answer. We need neither rob God of his prescience, nor man of 

»his free will. I grant, God made angels and men, that if they would 
not be eternally saved, they might be damned. But what has this doc- 
trine to do with yours, which supposes that he made some angels and 
men that they might absolutely and necessarily be damned? Is not our 
doctrine highly consistent with God’s goodness and justice; while yours — 
is the reverse of these Divine perfections?’ Again :— 

Your argument, though ingenious, is inconclusive, because it is found. 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 177 


ed upon the common mistake of shifting the words upon which it chiefly 
turns. ‘The flaw of it consists in substituting the clause “necessarily 
deserve to be damned,” instead of the clause “certainly deserve to be 
damned,” just “as if there was no difference between certainty and ne- 
cessity! But a little attention will convince you of your error. It is 
certain that I write this moment, but am I necessitated to it? May I not 
drop my pen, and meditate, read, or walk? The chasm which, in many 
Cases, separates absolute certainty from absolute necessity, is as immense 
as that which stands between a pot and infinity. Take notice of the 
insect that buzzes about your ears: does it not exist as certainly as God 
himself? But would it not be a kind of blasphemy to say that it exists 
as mecessarily? Would it not at least be paying to a fly an honour which 
is due to none but God, the only supreme and absolutely necessary being ? 
And when you support your doctrines of grace by confounding certainty 
with necessity, do you not support them by confounding two things, which, 
_ ina thousand cases, and especially in the present one, have no more con- 
nection than the two poles? Have not judicious Calvinists granted that 
although the prescience of God concerning Judas’ destruction could not 
stand (cwm eventu contrario) “ with his salvation ;” yet it stood perfectly 
well (cum possibilitate ad eventum contrarium) “with the possibility of 
his salvation?” And is not this granting that although God clearly saw 
that Judas would not repent, he clearly saw also that Judas might have 
repented “in the accepted time,” which is all that I contend for? (See 
Davenani’s Animad. Cambridge edition, 1641, p. 38.) 

To be a little more explicit: let me again intreat you to fall with me 
before the throne of grace, where the Redeemer teaches mortals to be 
“meek, lowly, and wise in the heart.” Spread your doubts before him 
in such humble language as this: “'Thou light of the world, let not thy 
creature remain in darkness with respect to the most important question - 
in the world. Am I appointed necessarily to continue in sin and be 
damned? Is my damnation finished? Hast thou absolutely ordained 
me to be a vessel of wrath, and irrevocably appointed my eternal rejec- 
tion without any respect to my personal free will? Does thy foreknow- 
ledge necessitate my actions? Or may I choose life or death, and, 
through thy mercy or justice, have either the one or the other, becord 
ing to my free, unnecessitated choice—my choice equally opposed to 
unwillingness and to necessity? Speak, gracious Lord, that if I ama 
necessary agent, I may, without any farther perplexity, yield myself to 
be carried by the irresistible stream of thy free grace, or of thy free 
wrath, to the throne in heaven, or to the dungeon in hell, which thou 
hast appointed for me from all eternity, according to the doctrine of the 
heathen poet :— 


‘Solvite mortales animos, curisque levate : 
Fata regunt orbem, certa stant omnia lege.’”* 


If Christ is the Logos; if he is reason and the Word—the eine” 
wisdom, and the uncreated Word of the Father ; may we not get a satis- 


factory answer to the preceding question by considering, with humble 
prayer, his unerring word, and by diligently listening to the reason which 


* **O ye mortals, dismiss your cares, and unbend your minds. Predestination. 
ules the world: all things happen according to a fixed decree.” (Manilius.) 


Vou. II. 


* 


178 EQUAL CHECK. : [part 


: * 
he has given us? And shall I take an unbecoming liberty, if I suppose 
that he himself expostulates with Zelotes in such words as these? __ 

“ Son of man, if thou chargest the reprobation of the damned, or their 
predestination to eternal death upon my free wrath, my sovereignty, or 
Adam’s sin, thou insultest my goodness and justice. That reprebation 
has no properly original cause, but their own personal free will. Iwould a 
thousand times haye crushed thy primitive parents into atoms, when they 
forfeited my favour, rather than I would have spared them to propagate 
arace of creatures, most of whom, according to thy doctrines, are 
under an absolute necessity to sin and be damned. Thou hast a wrong 
idea of my word and attributes. With the wisdom and equity of a tender- 
hearted judge I condemn the victims of my justice, and I do it merely 
for their personal and obstinate contempt of my free grace. Be then no 
longer mistaken: my decree of reprobation is nothing but a fixed reso- 
lution of giving sinners over to the perverseness of their free will, if they 
resist the drawings of my free grace to the end of their day of initial 
salvation. And what can be more equitable than such a resolution? Is 
it not right that free agents, who to the last despise my goodness, should 
become monuments of my despised goodness, which is but another name 
for my vindictive justice ? 

“IT foresaw, indeed, that, by such a final contempt of my grace, many 
would bring destruction upon themselves ; but having wisely decreed to 
make a world of probationers and free agents, I could not necessarily — 
incline their will to obedience, without robbing them of free agency : nor 
could I rob them of free agency without foolishly defeating the counsel 
of my own mind, and absurdly spoiling the work of my own hands. Be- 
side, from the beginning my intention was not only to show my power 
and goodness in creating, but also to display my wisdom and justice in 
governing accountable creatures, to whom ‘ without respect of persons, 
I should render according to their works—eternal life to them who by 
patient continuance in well doing seek for glory; but tribulation and 
anguish to them that are contentious and disobedient.’ 

“‘T abhor extorted, forced, necessary submission in rationals: it suits 
the dastardly children of the devil, and not the free-born sons of God. 
ZI could not then in wisdom send upon this world such overpowering 
streams of light; or permit the tempter to spread such thick darkness 
‘upon it, as might invincibly or necessarily turn the scale of man’s will 
‘for loyalty or rebellion. So unadvised a step would immediately have” 


vtaken them out of the probation in which I had placed them. 


_ “Again: had I directly or indirectly thrown into the scale a weight 
‘sufficient to turn it irresistibly, I should have acted a most unreasonable 
and detestable part: (1.) A most unreasonable part : for if I alone com- 
pletely ‘work out the salvation’ of believers, according to what thou — 
callest finished salvation, nothing can be more absurd than my appoint- 
ing a day of judgment and rewards, to bestow upon the elect an eternal 
life of glory according to their works. (2.) A most detestable part: for — 
if I earnestly invited all the wicked to choose life, after having absolutely 
chosen death for most of them, should I not show myself the most hypo. » 
critical of all tyrants ? 

“ But thou stumblest at my foreknowledge, and askest why I bestow 


.the blessings of initial salvation upon those whose free agency will cer. 


THIRD.| SCRIPTURE SCALES. 179 


tainly abuse my goodness, and do despite to the Spirit of my saving 
grace. Thou thinkest it is wrong in me to give them that well perish 
the cup of initial salvation, when I know they will not accept the cup of 
eternal salvation. Thou supposest it would be better to reprobate them 
at once, than to expose them to a greater damnation, by putting it in 
their power to reject the terms of eternal salvation, and by that mean to 
fall from initial salvation. But I shall silence thy objections by proposing 
some plain questions to thee, as I once did to my servant Job. 

1. “Is it reasonable to suppose that I should pervert my nature, and 
act in a manner contrary to my perfections, to prevent free agents from 
perverting their nature, and acting in a manner contrary to their happi- 
ness? What wouldest thou have thought of my wisdom if I had appointed 
Lucifer to hell, and Adam to the grave, from eternity, for fear they 
should deserve those punishments by wilfully falling from heaven and 
from paradise? [Is it not absurd to fancy that the Creator must bring 
himself in guilty of misconduct, lest his rational creatures should render 
themselves so ? 

2. “If thou thinkest it right in me to command the Gospel of my free 
grace to be preached to ‘ every creature,’ although thou knowest that the 
neglecters of it will, like the people of Capernaum, fall into a deeper 
hell for their final contempt of that favour; why shouldest thou think it 
wrong in me to extend the virtue of my blood, and the strivings of my 
Spirit to those who will finally reject my free grace? When thou ap- 
provest the extensive tenor of my Gospel commission, dost thou well to 
be angry, or to fret, like Jonah, at the extensiveness of my mercy? 
Dost thou not see that if I were absolutely merciless toward some men, 
my commission to preach the Gospel to every man would be utterly 
inconsistent with my veracity ? 

3. “Have I not a right to create free agents, and to place them in a 
state of probation, that I may wisely reward their obedience, or justly 
punish their rebellion? ‘ Who art thou, that repliest against God? Shall 
the thing formed say to him that formed it,’ Why hast thou made me a 


free agent? a probationer for heavenly rewards, or infernal punishments ? 


May not I appoint that free-willing unbelievers, who do final despite to the 
Spinit of my free grace, shall be ‘ vessels of wrath, self fitted for destruc- 
tion ;’ and that free-willing, obedient believers shall be ‘ vessels of mercy, 
afore prepared unto glory’ by my me grace, with which their free will 
has happily concurred ? 

4. “Jn the nature of things must not free agents, in a state of proba- 
tion, be free to fall, as well as free to stand? When thou weighest gold, 
if thou hinderest one scale from turning, dost thou not effectually hinder 
the free motion of the other scale ? 

5. “ Does it not become me to show myself good and gracious, though 
my creatures prove wicked and ungrateful? Should I extinguish or 
restrain my light, because some people love darkness rather than light? 
If they will not do their duty by me, as obedient creatures, ought I not to 
behave to them as a gracious Creator, and to hold out the golden sceptre 
of my mercy, before I strike them with the iron rod of my vengeance? 
And should not the honour of my Divine attributes be considered more — 
than the additional degrees of misery, which ungrateful free agents will 
obstinately bring upon themselves ? 


180 EQUAL CHECK. Kes 
Uo JF 

6. “ When Ihad decreed to create a world of free agents, and to try 
their loyalty, in order to reward the obedient and punish the rebellious, 
could I execute my wise, just, and gracious plan without suffering sin to 
enter into the world, if free agents would commit it? Is permitting the 
possibility of sin, any more than permitting that free will might, or might 
not concur with my free grace? And could I ever have judged the world 
in righteousness, if I had not permitted such a possibility ? 

7. “If I had given the casting vote for Peter’s obedience, and for 
Judas’ disobedience, should I not have fixed an eternal blot upon my 
impartiality? Thinkest thou that I could be so unwise and unjust as to 
hold a universal judgment, to judge angels and men according to what 
they have done through mere necessity? Shall irresistible free grace, 
and omnipotent free wrath, force the human will? and shall I reward or 
punish overpowered mankind according to such constraint? Far be 
the thought from thee! Far be the iniquity from me! I judge the 
world in righteousness, and not in madness ; according to their own works, 
and not according to mine. 

8. “ When I foresaw that sin would enter into the world, could I have 
been just if [had not decreed to punish sinners? Could I, with justice, 
sentence moral agents either to non-ewistence, or to a wretched existence, 
BEFORE they had done wickedly 7—arrer they had sinned, and { had — 
graciously promised them a Saviour, could I, without showing myself 
full of dissimulation, partiality, and falsehood, condemn those that per- 
ish, serore | had afforded them the means of recovery, by which many 
of their fellow sinners, under the same circumstances, attain eternal sal- 
vation? Must not, in the nature of things, those who work out their 
damnation be doubly guilty, or I be notoriously partial? Must they not 
appear without excuse before all ; or I without mercy, long suffering, and 
truth toward them ? 

9. “ Dost thou not see that although the ministration of righteousness 
and rewards ‘exceeds in glory,’ yet the ministration of condemnation 
and punishments ‘is glorious?’ Beside, are they not closely connected 
together? Has not the fear of hell, as well as the hope of heaven, kept 
thousands of martyrs from drawing back to perdition, when the snares of 
death compassed them about? Nay, is not ‘ the spirit of bondage unto 
fear’ the beginning of wisdom, and, generally, of the conversion of the 
heart of man tome? And shall I act a deceitful part for thousands of 
_years together, working upon my people by a lie, and making them be- 
lieve that they have damnation if they disbelieve, or if they cast off their 
first faith, when yet (upon thy scheme) there is nothing but finished 
salvation for them ? 

10. “ Will not the damnation of obstinate sinners answer as important 
ends in the world of rationals, as prisons and places of execution do in 
the kingdoms of this world? If incorrigible, free-willing rebels sin to 
all eternity, will it not be just in me to make the line of their punish- 
ment run parallel with the line of their wickedness? Does not thy rea- 
son dictate that an unceasing contempt of my holy law, and a perpetual 
‘rebellion against creating, redeeming, and sanctifying grace, will call ~ 
_ aloud for a perpetual outpouring of my righteous indignation? And does 
it not follow that the eternal damnation of rebels eternally obstinate—of 
rebels who have wantonly trampled under foot the blessings of initial sal- 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 181 


vation, is as consistent with my despised goodness, as with my provoked 
justice ? 

11. “As I could not justly condemn necessary agents to infernal misery ; 
so I could not delight in, and reward the obedience of such agents. And 
as thou hast more pleasure in the free, loving motions of one of thy 
friends, than in the necessary motions of ten thousand pieces of clock 
work, let them move ever so regularly, so do I put more value upon the 
free, voluntary obedience of one of my people, than upon all the necessary 
revolutions of all the planetary worlds. Why then wilt thou, by thy 
doctrine of bound will, rob me of what I value most in the universe—the 
free obedience of my faithful servants—the unforced, spontaneous love of 
my mystical body, my spouse, my Church? 

12. “ With respect to my foreknowledge of sin, it had absolutely no 
influence on the commission of it. Thou thinkest the contrary, because 
thou canst not, in general, certainly foresee what thy neighbours will do, 
unless they are absolutely directed and influenced by thee: but the con- 
sequence does not hold. Short sighted as thou art, dost thou not some- 
times with a degree of certainty foresee things which thou art so far from 
appointing, that thou wouldest gladly prevent them, if thou didst not 
consider that such a step would be inconsistent with thy wisdom, and the 
liberty of others? 

13. “Again: may not my foreknowledge of a future event imply the 
certainty of that event with respect tome, without implying its necessity 
with respect to the free agent who spontaneously causes it? Suppose 
thou wert perfectly acquainted with the art of navigation, the force of 
every wind, the situation of every rock and sand bank, the strength and 
burden of every ship, the disposition and design of every mariner, &c: 
suppose again thou sawest a ship going full sail just against a dangerous 
rock, notwithstanding thy repeated signals and loud warnings to the pilot ; 
mightest thou not foresee the certain loss of the ship, without laying the 
least necessity upon the pilot to steer her upon the fatal spot where she 
goes to pieces? And shall not I, from whom no secrets are hid, and 
before whom things past and to come meet in one immovable, everlasting 
now :—shall not I, ‘ who inhabit eternity,’ where he ‘that was, and is, 
and is to come,’ shows himself the unchangeable I am,—shall not I, I 
say, foresee the motions and actions of all my free-acting creatures, as 
certainly as a wise artist foresees the motions of the watch which he 
has made? Imperfect as the illustration is, it is adapted to thy imperfect 
understanding. For though thou canst not comprehend how I know 
future contingencies, thou canst easily conceive, that as no one but a 
watch maker can perfectly foresee what may accelerate, stop, or alter 
the motion of a watch, so none but the Creator of a free agent can perfectly 
foresee the future motions of a free agent. If ‘hell is naked, and destruc- 
tion hath no covering before me,’ is it not absurd to suppose that the 
human heart can be hid from my all-piercing eye? And if thou, who 
livest but in a point of time, and in a point of space ;—if thou, whose 
faculties are so shallow, and whose powers are so circumscribed ;—if 
thou, I say, in that point of time and space which thou fillest, canst see 
what is before thee, why should not I, an all-wise and superlatively per- 
fect Spirit, who fill all times, and all places, through an infinite now and 
a boundless HERE, see also what is before me? Perceivest thou not the 


° 
182 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


absurdity of measuring me with thy span? Try to weigh the mountains” 
in a balance, and to measure the seas in the hollow of thy hand; and if 
thou findest thyself confounded at the bare thought of a task so easy to 
my omnipotence, fall in the dust, and confess that thou hast acted an 
unbecoming part, in attempting to put the very same bounds to my omni- 
science, which I have put to thy foreknowledge. To conclude :— 

14, “Thou art ready to think hardly of my wisdom, goodness, or 
foresight, for giving a talent of saving grace to a man, who, by burying 
it to the last, enhances his own destruction. To solve this imaginary 
difficulty, thou ascribest to me a dreadful sovereignty—a horrible right 
of making vessels to dishonour, and filling them with wrath, merely to 
show my absolute power. But let me expostulate a moment with thee. 
I foresaw, indeed, that the slothful, unfaithful man, to whom I gave one 
talent, would bury it to the last: but if I had kept it from him; if I had 
afforded him no opportunity of showing his faithfulness, or his unfaith- 
fulness; what could I have done with him? Had I sent him to hell 
upon foreseen disobedience, I should have acted the absurd and cruel 
part of a judge who hangs an honest man to-day, ugder pretence that 
he foresees the honest man will turn thief to-morrow ;—had I taken him 
to heaven, I should have rewarded foreseen unfaithfulness with heavenly 
glory. And, had I refused to let him come into existence, my refusal 
would have been attended with a glaring absurdity, and with two great 
inconveniences. (1.) With a glaring absurdity ; for if I foresee that a 
man will certainly bury his talent ; and if, upon this foresight, I refuse 
that man existence, it follows I foresaw that a thing which shall never 
come to pass, shall certainly come to pass. And what can be more 
unworthy of me, and more absurd, than such a foresight? (2.) The 
notion that my foreknowledge of the man’s burying his talent should 
have made me suppress his existence, is big with two great inconye- 
niences. For, first, 1 should have defeated my own purpose, which was 
to show my distributive justice by rewarding him, if he would be faith- 
ful; or by punishing him, tf he would continue in his wunfaithfulness. 
And, secondly, I should have broken, almost without interruption, the 
laws of the natural world, and nipped the man’s righteous posterity in the 
bud. Had I, for instance, prevented the wickedness of all the ancestors 
of the Virgin Mary, by forbidding their existence, ten times oyer I might 
have suppressed her useful being, and my own important humanity. 
Nay, at this rate, I might have destroyed all mankind twenty times over. 
Drop then thy prejudices; be not wise above what is written for thy 
instruction. Under pretence of exalting free grace, do not pour con- 
tempt upon free will, which is my masterpiece in man, as man himself 
is my masterpiece in this world. Remember that hell is the just wages 
which abused free grace gives to free-willing, incorrigible sinners; and 
that heaven is the gracious reward with which my free grace, when it © 
is submitted to, crowns the obedience of corrigible persevering believers. 
Nor forget that, if thou oppose the doctrine of free grace, thou wilt 
undermine my cross, and insult me as a Saviour: and if thou decry the 
doctrine of free will, thou wilt sap the foundation of my tribunal, and 
affront me as a judge.” 

To the arguments contained in the preceding plea, I add an extract 


. 


THIRD.) — SCRIPTURE SCALES. 183 


trom a discourse written, I think, by Archbishop King, with a design to 
reconcile the Predestinarians and the free willers. 

« Foreknowledge and decrees,” says that judicious writer, “are only 
assigned to God, to give us a notion of the steadiness and certainty of 
the Divine actions; and if so, for us to conclude that what is represented 
by them is inconsistent with the contingency of events or free will, &c, 
is the same absurdity as to conclude that China is no bigger than a 
sheet of paper, because the map that represents it is contained in that 
compass.” 

The same ingenious author proposes the argument that has so puzzled 
mankind, and done so much mischief in the world. It runs thus :—* If 
God foresee, &c, that I shall be saved, I shall infallibly be so; and if 
he foresee, &c, that I shall be damned, it is unavoidable. And there- 
fore it is no matter what I do, or how I behave myself in this life.” “If 
God’s foreknowledge were exactly conformable to ours, the consequence 
would seem just; but, &c, it does not follow, because our foresight of 
events, if we suppose it infallible, must presuppose a necessity in them, 
that therefore the Divine prescience must require the same necessity in 
order to its being certain. It is-true we call God’s foreknowledge and 
our own by the same name ; but this is not from any real likeness in the 
nature of the faculties, but from some proportion observable in the effects 
of them; both having this advantage, that they prevent any surprise on 
the person endowed with them. Now as it is true that no contingency 
or freedom in the creatures can any way deceive or surprise God, put 
him to a loss, or oblige him to alter his measures ; so on the other hand 
it is likewise true that the Divine prescience does not hinder freedom: 
and a thing may either be, or not be, notwithstanding that foresight of it 
which we ascribe to God. When therefore it is alleged that if God 
foresees I shall be saved, my salvation is infallible ; this does not fol- 
low: because the foreknow: ledge-of God i is not like man’s, which requires 
necessity in the event, in order to its being certain ; but of another na- 
ture consistent with contingency: and our inability to comprehend this 
arises from our ignorance of the true nature of what we call foreknow- 
ledge in God, &c. Only of this we are sure, that it so differs fromsours 
that it may consist either with the being, or not being of what is said to 
be foreseen, &c. Thus St. Paul was a chosen vessel, and he reckons 
himself in the number of the predestinated, Eph. i, 5. And yet he sup- 
poses it possible for him to miss of salvation: and therefore he looked 
upon himself as obliged to use mortification, and exercise all other 
graces, in order to make his calling and election sure ; ‘lest,’ he says, 
‘that, by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should 
be a castaway,’ or a reprobate, as the word is translated in other places.” 

This author’s important observation, concerning the difference be- 


“tween God’s foreknowledge and ours, may be illustrated by the following 


remarks :—Hearing and sight are attributed to God, as well as fore- 
knowledge and foresight. “He that planted the ear,” says David, 
“shall he not hear? And he that formed the eye, shall he not see ?” 
Now is it not as absurd to measure God’s perfect manner of foreseeing 
and foreknowing, by our imperfect foresight and knowledge, as to mea- _ 
sure his perfect manner of seeing and hearing by our imperfect manner _ 
of doing them? If Zelotes said, “I cannot see the inhabitants of the 


184 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


planets: I cannot see the antipodes: I cannot see through that wall: 
I can see nothing of solids but their surface, &c, therefore Gop cannot 
see the inhabitants of the planets, the antipodes,” &c, would not his 
argument appear to you inconclusive? Nevertheless, it is full as strong 
as the following, on which Zelotes’ objection is founded :-—*I cannot 
certainly foresee the free thoughts and contingent intentions of the hu- 
man heart, therefore God cannot do it: I am not omniscient, therefore 
God is not so.” If I argued in this manner, would you not say, “ O 
injudicious man, how long wilt thou measure God’s powers by thine? 
See, if thou canst, what now passes in my breast? Nay, see thy own 
back ; see the fibres which compose the flesh of thy hands, or the vapour 
that exhales out of all thy pores. And if these near—these present— 
these material objects are out of the reach of thy sight, what wonder is 
it if future contingencies are out of the reach of thy foresight? Cease 
then to confine God’s foreknowledge within the narrow limits of thine, 
and own that an omnipresent, omniscient, and everlasting Spirit, who 
‘is over all, through all, and in all,’ and whose permanent existence 
and boundless immensity comprehend all times and places, as the atmos- 
phere contains all clouds and vapours ;—own, I say, that such a Spirit ~ 
can, at one glance, see from his eternity all the revolutions of time far 
more clearly than thou canst see the characters which thine eyes are 
now fixed upon. And confess that it is the highest absurdity to sup- — 
pose that an omnipresent, omnipotent, spiritual, and eternal eye, which 
is before, behind, and in all things, times, and places, can ever be at a 
loss to know or foreknow any thing. And what is God but such an eye? 
And what are Divine knowledge and foreknowledge, but the sight of 
such a spiritual, eternal, and omnipresent eye ?” Z 

I do not know whether this vindication of our free agency, of God’s 
foreknowledge, and of the consistency of both will please my readers : 
but I flatter myself that it will satisfy Candidus. Should it soften the 
prejudices of Zelotes, without hardening those of Honestus, it will pro- 
mote the reconciliation which I endeavour to bring about, and answer 
the end which I proposed when I took up the pen to throw some light 
upon this deep and awful part of my subject. 


SECTION VII. 


Zelotes’ second objection to a reconciliation—T hat objection is taken 
from President Edwards’ and Voltaire’s doctrine about necessity— 
The danger of that doctrine—The truth lies between the extremes of 
rigid bound willers and rigid free willers—We have liberty, but it is 
ancomplete, and much confined—The doctrines of power, liberty, and, 
necessity, are cleared up by plain descriptions, and important dis- 
tinctions—The ground of Mr. Edwards’ mistake about necessity is 
discovered ; and his capital objection against free will is answered. 
Zexortes has another specious objection to a reconciliation with Ho- 

nestus. It runs thus :— 

Ossection II. “ Honestus is for free will, and I am against it. How 
“can you expect to reconcile us?’ Can you find a medium between free 


> 
THIRD. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 185 


will and necessity? Now, that we are not free-willing creatures may 
be demonstrated from reason and experience: (1.) From reason. Does 
not every attentive mind see that a man cannot help following the last 
dictate of his understanding ; that such a dictate is the necessary result 
of the light in which he sees things; that this light likewise is the ne- 
cessary result of the circumstances in which he is placed, and of the 
objects which he is surrounded with ;—and, of consequence, that all is 
necessary; one event being as necessarily linked to, and brought on by 
another, as the second link of a chain in motion is necessarily connected 
with, and drawn on by the first lnk? Thus, for example, the accidental, 
not to say the providential sight of Bathsheba, necessarily raised un- 
chaste desires in David’s mind: these desires necessarily produced 
adultery: and adultery, by a chain of necessary consequences, neces- 
sarily brought on murder. All these events were decreed, and depended 
as much upon each other as the loss of a ship depends upon a storm, 
and a storm upon a strong rarefaction or condensation of the air. (2.) 
EXPERIENCE shows that we are not at liberty to act otherwise than we 
do. Did you never hear passionate people complain that they could 
not moderate their anger? How often have persons in love declared 
that their affections were irresistibly drawn to, and fixed upon such and 
such objects? You may as soon bid an impetuous river to stop, as bid 
a drunkard to be sober, and a thief to be honest, till sovereign, almighty, 
victorious grace makes them so. **The way of man is not in himself; 
it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,’ Jer. x, 23.” 

Answer. I grant that “the way of man is not in himself” to make 
his escape, when the hour of vengeance is come, and when God sur- 
rounds him with his judgments: and that this was Jeremiah’s meaning, 
in the verse which you quote to rob man of his moral agency; is evident 
from the words that immediately precede: “The pastors are become 
brutish: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be 
scattered; behold the noise of the bruit [the hour of vengeance] is come, 
and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of | 
Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.” Then come the misapplied 
words, “O Lord, I know that the. way of a man [to make his escape] is 
not in himself, &c. Correct me, but with judgment, &c, lest thou bring 
me to nothing :” see verses 21, 22,24. With respect to David, he had 
probably resisted as strong temptations to impurity, as that by which he 
fell; and he might, no doubt, have stood, if he had not been wanting to 


* This very passage was urged to a friend of mine by the obdurate highway- 
man who was hanged last year at Shrewsbury! He cited it on the morning of 
his execution, to excuse his crimes, and to comfort himself. He had drunk so 
deeply into the doctrine of necessity, bound will, and fatalism, that he was en- 
tirely inaccessible to repentance. What pity is it that Zelotes should counte- 
nance so horrid a misapplication of the Scriptures! Heated Austin is my Ze- 
otes in this respect. Bishop Davenant saith of him, that ‘“‘he did not abhor 
fate 7’ and to prove his assertion he quotes the following words of that father :— 
“If any one attributes human affairs [which take in all the bad thoughts, words, 
and actions of men,] to fate, because he calls the will and the power of God by 
the name of fate, let him hold his sentiment and alter his language. Sententiam 
teneat, linguam corrigat.” (Aug. De Grat. lib.5,c.1.) Is not tais granting 
Mr. Voltaire as much fatalism as he contends for? and gilding the fatal pill so 
piously as to make it go down glib with all the rigid bound willers in Christen 
dom? . 


186 EQUAL CHECK. . _ [Part 
himself, both before, and at the time of his temptation. With regard 


to what you say about a storm; two ships of equal strength may be 


tossed by the same tempest, and without necessity one of them may be 
lost by the negligence, and the other saved by the skill of the. pilot. 
And if we may believe St. Paul, the lives which God had given him 
would have been lost, if the sailor had not stayed in the ship to manage 
her to the last, Acts xxvii, 31,34. You appeal to experience : but it is 
as much against you as against Honestus. Experience shows that we 
have liberty, and thus experience is against you. Again: experience 
convinces us that our liberty has many bounds, and thus experience is 
against Honestus. As to your scheme of the concatenation of forcible 
circumstances and events, it bears hard upon all the Divine perfections. 


God is too wise, too good, and holy, to give us a conscience and a law - 


which forbids us to sin; and to place us in the midst of such forcible 
circumstances as lay a majority of mankind under an absolute necessity 
of sinning to the last, and being damned for ever. We are therefore 
endued with a degrce of free will. Through Him who “tasteth death 
for every man,” and through “the free gift which came upon all men,” 
we may “choose life” in the day of initial salvation ; we may, by grace, 
(by ‘‘the saving grace which has appeared to all ig pursue the 
things that make for our peace; or we may, by nature, (by our own 
natural powers,) follow after the things that make for our misery, just 
as we have a mind. “ We cannot do all,” says one, “therefore we can 
do nothing.” We can do something,” says another, “therefore we can 
do all.” Both consequences are equally false. The truth stands be- 
tween two extremes. Beside :— 

The doctrine of bound will draws after it a variety of bad conse- 
quences. It is subversive of the moral difference which subsists between 
virtue and vice. It takes away all the demerit of unbelief. It leaves 
no room for the rewardableness of works. It strikes at the propriety 
of a day of judgment. It represents truth and error like two almighty 
charms, which irresistibly work upon the elect and the reprobates, to 
execute God’s absolute decrees about our good or bad works, our finished 
salvation or finished damnation. In a word, it fastens upon us the gross- 
est errors of Pharisaic fatalists, and the wildest delusions of Antino- 
mian gospellers, 

Having thus given a general answer to the objection proposed, I re- 
mind the reader that Mr. Edwards, president of New Jersey college, is 
exactly of Zelotes’ sentiments with respect to necessity or bound will. 
They agree to maintain that necessary circumstances necessarily turn 
the scale of our judgment, that our judgment necessarily turns the scale 
of our will, and that the freedom of our will consists merely in choosing 
with willingness what we choose by necessity. Mr. Voltaire also at she 
head of the fatalists abroad, and one of my opponents at the head of 
the Calvinists in England, give us, after Mr. Edwards, this false idea of 
liberty. 

To show their mistake, I need only to produce the words of Mr. 
Locke :—“ Liberty cannot be where thére is no thought, no volition, no 
will, &c. So a man striking himself, or his‘ friend, by a convulsive mo- 
tion of his arm, which it is not in his power by volition, or the direction 

of his mind, to stop or forbear; nobody thinks he has liberty in this; 


q 


_ ‘THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 187 


> 


every one pities him, as acting by necessity and constraint. Again: 
there may be thought, there may be will, there may be volition, where 
there is no liberty. Suppose a man be carried, while fast asleep, into 
a room, where is a person he longs to see, and there be locked fast in 
beyond his power to get out; he awakes, and is glad to see himself 
in so desirable company, in which he stays so willingly; that is, he 
prefers his staying to going away. Is not this stay voluntary? I think 
nobody will doubt it ; and yet being locked fast in, he is not at liberty to 
stay, he has not freedom to be gone. So that liberty is not an idea be- 
longing to volition, or preferring ; but to the person having the power 
of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the mind shall se or 
direct.” (Essay on Hum. Und. chap. 21.) 

This excellent quotation encourages me to make a fuller inquiry into 
the mistakes of the rigid Predestinarians and rigid free willers, who 
equally start from the truth that lies between them both. It is greatly 
to be wished that the bounds of necessity and liberty were drawn con- 
sistently with reason, Scripture, and experience. I shall attempt to do 
it: and if I am so happy as to succeed, I shall reach the centre of the 


difficulty, and point out the very spring of “the waters of strife :’ 


Honestus will be convinced that he has too high thoughts of our liberty : 
Zelotes will see that his views of it are too much contracted: and Can- 
didus will learn to avoid their contrary mistakes. I begin by a definition 


of necessity and of liberty. 


Moral philosophers observe that necessity is that constraint upon, or 
confinement of the soul, whereby we cannot do a thing otherwise than 
we do it. Hence it appears that, strictly speaking, there is no such 
thing as moral necessity. For could we be constrained to do unavord- 
able good or evil, that good were not moral good, that evil were not 
moral evil. Could we be necessarily confined in the channel of virtue 
or of vice, as a river is confined in its bed, without any power to retard 
or accelerate our virtuous or vicious motions as we see fit ; our tempers’ 
and actions would lose their morality and their immorality. To speak 
with propriety, necessity has no place but in the natural world. Strictly 
speaking, it is excluded from the moral world; for what we may and 
must regulate or alter, cannot possibly be necessary or unalterable. 
Nevertheless I shall, by and by, venture upon the improper expression 
of moral necessity, to convey the idea of a strong, moral propensity or 
habit, and to point out with greater ease Mr. Edwards’ mistake. 

This ingenious author asserts that, by the law of our nature, we 
choose what we swppose to be, upon the whole, most eligible. I grant 
it is so i most cases: nevertheless, I deny necessity, because there is 
no necessity imposed upon us to suppose that, upon the whole, a thing 
is most eligible which at first sight appears to be so to the eye of preju- 
dice or passion; our liberty being chiefly a limited power to attend 
either to the dictates of reason and conscience, or to those of prejudice 
and passion ;—to follow either the motions of the tempter or those of 
Divine grace. I say a limited power, because our power is incomplete, 
as will appear by considering the particulars of which our liberty does 
and does not consist. And, , 

1. It does not consist, in general,* in a power to choose evil and 


* T use these limited expressions because, upon second thoughts, I do not abso- 


188 EQUAL CHECK. Tes 
misery as such. Seldom do men, who are yet in a state of probation 
men, who are not degenerated into mere fiends, choose evil’ only as evil. 
When we pursue some evil, it is then generally under the appearance 
of some good; or, as leading to some good, which will sooner or later 
make us ample amends for the present evil. For God having made us 
for the supreme good, which is the knowledge and enjoyment of him- 


self, he has placed in our souls an unquenchable thirst after happiness, 


that we may ardently seek him, the fountain of true happiness. It can 
hardly be said, therefore, that probationers are at liberty with respect to 
the capital inquiry, “ Who will show us any good?” We naturally desire 
good, just as a hungry man desires food: although he may say, “I do 
not choose to be hungry,” yet he is so, whether he will or not. 

2. But although a hungry man is necessarily hungry, yet he does not 
eat necessarily ; for he may fast, if he please: and when he chooses to 
eat, he may prefer bad to wholesome food; he may take more or less 


of either; he may take it now, or by and by; with deliberation, or with 


greediness, as he pleases. Apply this observation to our necessary 
hunger or thirst after happiness. All probationers necessarily ask, 
“Who will show us any good?” But.although they necessarily aim at 
happiness, yet they are not necessitated to aim at it in this or that way; 
although they cannot but choose that end, yet they are not irresistibly 
obliged to choose any one particular mean to attain it. 

Here then room is left for free will or liberty. We may choose to 
go to happiness, our mark, by saying, “ What shall we eat? What 
shall we drink? Wherewith shall we be clothed?” Who will give us 
corn and wine, silver and gold, worldly honours and sensual gratifica- 
tions ? or we may say, Who will give us pardon and peace, grace and 
glory? “Lord! lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us!” In 
a word, though we are not properly at liberty, whether we will choose 
happiness in general, that choice being morally necessary to us; yet in 
the day of initial salvation we may choose to seek happiness in our- 


selves, in our fellow creatures, or in our Creator; we may choose a. 


way that will lead us to imaginary and fading bliss, or to real and 
eternal happiness: or, to speak as the oracles of God, we may choose 
death or life. 

This being premised, I observe that our liberty consists, 1. In our 


lutely assent to Mr. Edwards’ doctrine, that the will always necessarily follows 
the last dictate of the understanding. I now think that in this respect Calvin’s 
judgment deserves our close attention :— Sic interdum flagitié turpitudo con- 
scientiam urget, ut non sibi imponens sub falsa boni imagine, sed sciens et volens, 
in malum ruat. Ex quo affectu prodeunt iste voces, ‘ Video meliora proboque, 
Deteriora sequor?” (Inst. lib. 2, cap. 2, section 23.) Sometimes the horrid na~ 
ture of vice so urges the conscience, that the sinner, no longer imposing upon 
himself by the false appearance of good, knowingly and willingly rushes upon 
evil. Hence flow these words, I see and approve what is good, but follow what 
is bad. 

Since these sheets went to the press, I have seen Mr. Wesley’s Thoughts upon 
Necessity. He strongly sides with Calvin against Edwards. For after asserting 
that sometimes our first, sometimes our last judgment is according to the impres- 
sions we have received; that in some cases we may or may not receive those im- 
pressions; and that in most we may vary them greatly ; he denies that the will 
necessarily obeys the last judgment, and affirms that ‘the mind has an intrinsic 
power of cutting off the connection between the judgment and the will.” 


i a 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. : 189 


being under no natural necessity with regard to our choice of the means 
by which we pursue happiness ; and, of consequence, with regard to our 
schemes and actions. I repeat it; by natural necessity I mean an abso- 
lute want of power to do the reverse of what is done. Thus by natural 
necessity an ounce is outweighed by a pound ; it can no ways help it: 
and a man, whose eyes are quite put out, cannot absolutely see the 
light, should he desire and endeavour it ever so much. Hence it 
appears, that when Peter denied his Master, he was under no natural 
necessity so to do; for he might have confessed him if he had pleased. 
When the martyrs confessed Christ, they might have denied him with 
oaths, if they had been so minded: and when David went to Uriah’s 
bed, he might have gone to his own. There was no shadow of natural 
necessity in the case. We may then, or we may not admit the truth or 
the lie, that is laid before us as a principle of action. Thus the eunuch, 
without necessity, admitted the truth delivered to him by Philip ; and Eve, 
without necessity, entertained the lie which was told her by the serpent. 

2. Our liberty consists in a power carefully to consider whether what 
is presented to us as a principle of action is a truth or a lie; lest we 
should judge according to deceitful appearances. Our blessed Lord, by 
steadily using this power, steadily baffled the tempter: and Adam, by 
not making a proper use of it, was shamefully overcome. 

3. It consists in a power, natural to all moral agents, to do acts of 
sin if they please, and in a supernatural or gracious power (bestowed 
for Christ’s sake upon fallen man) to forbear, with some degree of ease, 
doing sinful acts,* at least when we have not yet fully thrown ourselves 
down the declivity of temptation and passion; and when we have not 
yet contracted such strong habits as make virtue or vice morally neces- 
sary to us. 

4, It consists in a gracious power to make diligent inquiry, and to apply 
in doubtful cases to “the Father of lights” for wisdom, before we practi- 
cally decide that such a doctrine is true, or that such an action is right. 


'Had Eve and David used that power, the one would not have been 


deceived by a flattering serpent ; nor the other by an impure desire. 
But, 5. The highest degree of our liberty consists in a power to sus- 
pend a course of life entered upon ; to re-examine our principle, and to 
admit a new one, if it appear more suitable ; especially when we are 
particularly assisted by Divine grace, or strongly assaulted by tempta- 
tions adapted to our weakness. ‘Thus, by their gracious free agency, 
Manasses and the prodigal son suspended their bad course of life, 


* I make these exceptions for two reasons: (1.) Because I am sensible of the 
justness of Ovid’s advice to persons in love :— 


Principiis obsta, sero medicina paratur, &c. © 


For if love, and indeed any other violent passion, is not resisted at its first ap- 
pearance, it soon gets to such a height that it can hardly be mastered, till it has 
had its course. (2.) Because a habit strongly rooted is a second nature. Itis far 
easier to refrain from the first acts than to break off inveterate habits of virtue or 
of vice. In such cases, powerful, uncommon impulses of grace or of temptation 
are peculiarly necessary to throw us out of our beaten track. Hence the strong 
comparison of the prophet, “‘ Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard 
his spots? Then may ye also, that are accustomed to do evil, do good,”—without 
@ more than common assistance of Divine grace. 


+ 


190 EQUAL CHECK. : [parr 


weighed the case a second time for the better, admitted the nt Seah 
they once rejected, and from that new principle wrought righteousness : 
while, on the other hand, Solomon, Judas, and Demas, by their natural 
free agency suspended their good course of life, weighed the case a 
second time for the worse, admitted the lie which they once detested, and 
from that new principle wrought damnable iniquity. Is not this aecount 
of our real, though limited liberty, more agreeable to Scripture, reason, 
conscience, and experience, than the necessity maintained by Calvin- 
istic bound willers and Deistical fatalists ? 

I have already observed, (Equal Check, vol. i, p. 444,) that the seem- 
ingly contrary systems of those’ gentlemen, like the two opposite half 
diameters of a circle, meet in natural necessity, a central point which is 
common to both; Mr. Voltaire, who is the apostle of the Deistical 
world, and Mr. Edwards, who is the oracle of Calvinistic metaphy 


sicians, exactly agreeing to represent man as a mere, though willing | 


slave, to the circumstances in which he finds himself, and to load him 
from head to foot, and from the cradle to the grave, with the chains of 
absolute necessity, one link of which he can no more break, than he can 
make a world. Their error, if I mistake not, springs chiefly from their 
overlooking the important difference there is between natural necessity, 
and what the barrenness of language obliges me to call moral necessity. 
Hence it is that they perpetually confound real liberty, which is always 
of an active nature, with that kind of necessity in disguise, which I beg 
leave to call passive liberty. Clear definitions, illustrated by plain ex- 
amples, will make this intelligible ; will unravel the mystery of fatalism, 
and rescue the capital doctrine of liberty from its confinement in mysti- 
cal Babel. 

1. A thing is done by natural- necessity, when it unavoidably takes 
place, according to the fixed laws of nature. Thus, by natural necessity, 
a serpent begets a serpent, and not a dove; a fallen man begets a fallen 
child, and not an angel ; a deaf man cannot hear, and a cripple cannot 
be a swift racer. 

2. A thing is done by moral necessity, (if I may use that i improper 
expression,) when it is done by a free agent with a peculiar degree of 
readiness, resolution, and determination ; from strong motives, powerful 
arguments, confirmed habits ; and when it might nevertheless be done 
just the reverse, if the free agent pleased. Thus, by a low degree of 
moral necessity, chaste, conscientious Joseph struggled out of the arms 

-of his master’s wife, and cried out, “ How can I do this great wickedness, 
and sin against God?” And, by a high degree of it, Satan hates holiness, 
God abhors sin, and Christ refused to fall down and worship the devil. 

3. [have observed in the Second Check that Mr. Edwards’ celebra- 
ted Treatise upon Free Will turns in a great degree upon a comparison 
between balances and the will. 'To show more clearly the flaw of his 
performance, I beg leave to venture upon the zmproper, and, in one sense, 
contradictory expression of “ passive liberty.” By passive liberty (which 
might also be called mechanical liberty) I mean the readiness with which 
just scales turn upon the least weight thrown into either of them. Now 
it is certain that this /iberty (so called) is mere necessity ; for two even 
scales necessarily balance each other, and the heavier scale neces. 
sarily outweighs the lighter. According to the fixed laws of nature 


. 


* THIRD.] ’ SCRIPTURE SCALES. 191 


-1t cannot be otherwise. It is evident, therefore, that when Mr. Ed- 
wards avails himself of such popular, improper expressions as these, * 
“Good scales are free to turn either way; just balances are at 
liberty to rise or fall by the least weight,” he absurdly imposes upon the 
moral world a mechanical freedom or liberty, which is mere necessity. 
His mistake is set in a still clearer light by the following definition :— 

4. Active liberty is that of living creatures endued with a degree of 
power to use their fe aculties in various manners ; their prerogative is to 
have in general the weight that turns them, in a great degree, at their 
own disposal. Experience confirms this observation : how many stub- 
born beasts, for example, have died under the repeated strokes of their 
drivers, rather than move at their command! And how many thousand 
Jews chose to be destroyed rather than to be saved by Him who said, 
“How often would I have gathered you, &c, and ye would not! p? 
Hence it appears that active liberty subdivides itself into brutal liberty, 
and rational or moral liberty. 

5. Brutal liberty belongs to beasts, and rational or moral liberty be- 
longs to men, angels, and God. By brutal liberty understand the power 
that beasts have to use their animal powers various ways, according to 
their instinct and at their pleasure. By rational liberty understand the 
power that God, angels, and men have to use their Divine, angelic, or 
human powers in various manners, according to their wisdom, and at 
their pleasure. Thus, while,an oak is tied fast by the root to the spot 
where it feeds and grows, a horse carries his own root along with him, 
ranging without necessity, and feeding as he pleases, all over his pas- 
ture. While a horse is thus employed, a man may either make a sad- 
dle for his back, a spur for his side, a collar for his shoulder, a stable for 
his conyeniency, or a carriage for him to draw: or, leaving these me- 
chanical businesses to others, he may think of the scourge that tore his 
Saviour’s back ; call to mind the spear that pierced his side; reflect 
upon the cross that galled his shoulder ; the stable where he was born ; 
and the bright carriage in which he went to heaven: or he may, by 
degrees, so inure himself to infidelity as to call the Gospel a fable, and 
Christ an impostor. 

According to these definitions it appears that our sphere of liberty 
increases with our powers. The more powers animals/have, and the 
more ways they can use those powers, the more brutal liberty they 
have also: thus those creatures that can, when they please, walk upon 
the earth, fly through the air, or swim in the water, as some sorts of 
fowls, have a more extensive liberty than a worm, which has the free- 
dom of one of those elements only, and that too in a very imper- 
fect degree. 

As by the help of a good horse a rider increases his power to move 
swiftly, and to go far: so by the help of science and application a phi- 
losopher can penetrate into the secrets of nature, and an Archytas or a 
Newton can 


Aerias tentare domos, animoque rotundum 
Transmigrare polum.* 
‘ 


Such genses have undoubtedly more liberty of thought than those sots, 


* Soar to the stars, and with his mind travel round the universe. 


— 
192 EQUAL CHECK. 


whose minds are fettered by ignorance and excess, and whose imag 
tion can just make shift to flutter from the tavern to the play ‘house:and 
back again. By a parity of reason, they who enjoy “ the glorious libe 

of the children of God,” who can in a moment collect their thoughts, 
fix them upon the noblest objects, and raise them not only to the stars, 
like Archytas, but to the throne of God, like St. Paul ;—they who can 
“become all things to all men, be content” in every station, and even 
“sing at midnight” in a dungeon, regardless of their empty stomachs, 
their : scourged ‘backs, and their “feet made fast in the stocks ;” they 
who can command their passions and appetites, who “are free from 
sin,” and find “ God’s service perfect freedom ;” these happy people, I 
say, enjoy far more liberty of heart, than the brutish men who are so 
enslaved to their appetites and passions, that they have just liberty 
enough left them, not to ravish the women they set their eyes upon, and 
not to murder the men they are angry with. But although the liberty 
of God’s children is “glorious” now, it will be far more glorious 


when their regenerate souls shall be matched in the great.day with bodies ~ 


blooming as youth, beautiful as angels, radiant as the sun, powerful as 
lightning, immortal as God, and capable of keeping pace with the Lamb, 
when he shall lead them to new fountains of bliss, and run with them 
the endless round of celestial delights. 

To return: innumerable are the degrees of liberty peculiar to various 
orders of creatures; but no animals are accountable to their owners 
for the use of their powers, but they which have a peculiar degree of 
knowledge. Nor are they accountable, but in proportion to the degree 
of their knowledge and liberty. Your horse, for instance, has power to 
walk, trot, and gallop : you want him to do it alternately ; and, if he does 
not obey you, when you have intimated your will to him in a manner suit- 
able to his capacity, you may, without folly and cruelty, spur or whip him 
ito a reasonable use of his liberty and powers; for inferior creatures 
are in subjection to their possessors in the Lord. But if his feet were 
tied, or his legs broken, and you spurred him to make him gallop; or 
if you whipped a hen to make her swim, or an ox to make him fly, you 
would exercise a foolish and tyrannical dominion over them. This cruel 


absurdity, however, or one tantamount, is charged upon Christ by those 


who pretend to “exalt him” most. They thus dishonour him, as often 
as they insinuate that the children of men have no more power to be- 
lieve, than hens to swim, or oxen to fly; and that the Father of mercies 
will damn a majority of them, for not using a power which he determined 
they should never have. 

Some people assert that man has a little liberty in nanattel but none 
in spiritual things. I dissent from them for the following reasons: (1.) 
All men (monsters not excepted) having a degree of the human form, 
they probably have also a degree of human capacity, a measure of those 
mental powers by which we receive the knowledge of God; a knowledge 
this, which no horse can have, and which is certainly of a spiritual 


nature. (2.) The same apostle, who informs us that “the natural man” 


(so called) the man who quenches the Spirit of grace under his dispen- — 


sations, “cannot know the things of the Spirit of God, because they 
are discerned” only by the light of the Spirit, which he quenches or 
resists,—the same apostle, I say, declares, that “ what may be known of 


THIRD.| SCRIPTURE SCALES. ~ 193 


God, is manifest in them, [the most abandoned heathens ;] for God hath 
showed it unto them; so that they are without excuse ; because when they 
knew God, [in some degree,] they glorified him not as God,” according 
to the degree of that knowledge ; but became brutish, besotted persons ; 
or, to speak St. Paul’s language, “ they became vain in their imaginations ; 
they became fools; their foolish heart was darkened ; wherefore God 
gave them up to a reprobate mind,” and they were left in the deplorable 
condition of the Christian apostates described by St. Jude, “sensual, 
having not the Spirit :” in a word, they became Yuyixo1,*, mere animal 
men, the full reverse of spiritual men, 1 Cor. ii, 14. Far from being 
the wiser for “the light that [graciously] enlightens every man that 
cometh into the world,” they became “ inexcusable, by changing the truth 

_of God into a lie,” and turning their light to darkness, through the wrong 
use which they made of their liberty. 

When the advocates for necessity deny man the talent of spiritual 
liberty, which Divine wisdom and grace have bestowed upon him, they 
fondly exculpate themselves, and rashly charge God with Calvinistic 
reprobation. For who can think that an oyster is culpable for not flying 
as an eagle? And who can help shuddering at the cruelty of a tyrant, 
who, to show his sovereignty, bids all the idiots in his kingdom solve 
Euclid’s problems, if they will not be cast into a fiery furnace? Nor 
will it avail to say, as Elisha Coles and his admirers do, that though 
man has lost his power to obey, God has not lost his power to command 
upon pain of eternal death : for this is pouring poison into the wound, 
which the doctrine of natural necessity gives to the Divine attributes. 
Your slave runs a sportive race, falls, dislocates both his arms, and by 
that accident loses his power or liberty to serve you: in such circum- 
stances you may indeed find fault with him, for bringing this misfortune 
upon himself; but you show a great degree of folly and injustice if you 
blame him for not digging with his arms out of joint; and when you 
refuse him a surgeon, and insist upon his thrashing, unless he choose 
doubly to feel the weight of your vindictive hand, you betray an uncom- 
mon Want of good nature. But in how much more unfavourable a light 
would your conduct appear if his misfortune had been entailed upon him 
by one of his ancestors, who lost a race near six thousand years ago; 
and if you had given him a bond stamped with your own blood, to assure 
him that “your ways are equal,” and that you are “not an austere 
man,” that “ your mercy is over all your household,” and that punishing 
is your “strange work ?” : 

God is not such a master as the Calvinian doctrines of grace make him. 
For Christ’s sake he is always well pleased with the right use we make of 
our present degree of liberty, be that degree ever so little. For uncon- 
verted sinners themselves have some liberty. Fast tied and bound as 
they are with the chain of their sins, like chained dogs, they may move 
a little. If they have a mind they may, to a certain degree, come out 

* Yuyn is sometimes taken only for the principle of animal life. Thus, Rev. 
viii, 9, “‘ The third part of the sea became biood, and the third part of the crea- 
tures which wer? in the sea, and had ¥vyas [not natural but] animal life, died.” 
Hence Calvin himself renders the word ¥vyixos, animal man, though our trans- 
lators render it ‘‘ natural man,” as if the Greek word were ¢vo:xos. And upon 
their mistakes a vast majority of mankind are rashly represented as being abso 
lately destitute of all capacity to receive the saving truths of religion. 


Vou. II. 


194 — EQUAL CHECK [PART 


of Satan’s kennel. When they are pinched with hunger or trouble, like 
the prodigal son, they may go a little way toward the bread and the cor- 
dial that came down from heaven; and when their chains gall their 
minds, they may give the Father of mercies to understand that they 
want “the pitifulness of his great mercy to loose them.” Happy the 
souls who thus meet God with their little degree of power! ‘Thrice 
happy they who go to him so far as their chain allows, and then groan 
with David, “ My belly cleaveth to the dust. Bring my soul out of pri- 
son, that 1 may praise thy name !” When this is the case, “the captive 
exile hasteneth that he may be loosed ;” they that are thus “ faithful 
over a few things,” will soon be “set over many things ;” they will soon 
experience an enlargement, and say with the psalmist, “ Thou hast en- 
larged my steps under me :” my liberty is increased. ‘TI will run the 
way of thy commandments.” | 

The defenders of necessity are chiefly led into their error by con- 


sidering the imperfection of our liberty, and the narrow limits of our — 


powers : hut they reason inconclusively who say, “ Our liberty is imper- 
fect: therefore we have none. ‘ Without Christ we can do nothing :’ 
therefore we have absolutely no power to do any thing.” As some ob- 
servations upon this part of my subject may reconcile the judicious and 
candid on both sides of the question, I venture upon making the follow- 
ing remarks :— 

All power, and therefore all liberty, has its bounds. The king of 
England can make war or peace when he pleases, and with whom he 
pleases ; and yet he cannot lay the most trifling tax without his parlia- 
ment. The power of Satan is circumscribed by God’s power. God’s 
own power is circumscribed by his other perfections: he cannot sin, 
because he is holy ; he cannot cause two and two to make six, because 
he is true; nor can he create and annihilate a thmg m the same 
instant, because he is wise. Our Lord’s power is circumscribed also: 
« Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do 
nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” 

If a degree of confinement is consistent with the liberty of omnipotence 
itself, how much more can a degree of restraint be consistent with our 
natural, civil, moral, and spiritual liberty! ‘Take an instance of it: (1.) 
With regard to natural liberty. Although you cannot fly, you may 
walk, but not upon the sea, as Peter did; nor thirty miles at once, as 
some people do; nor one mile when you are quite spent ; nor five yards 
when you have a broken leg. (2.) With respect to ezvil liberty. You 
are a free-born Englishman: nevertheless, you are not free from taxes ; 
and probably you have not the freedom of two cities in all the kingdom, 
On the other hand, St. Paul is Nero’s “ prisoner, bound with a chain,” 
and yet he swims te shore, he gathers sticks, makes a fire, and preaches 
“two years in his own hired house, nobody forbidding him.” (3.) With 
respect to moral liberty. When Nabal is in company with his fellow 
sots, has good wine before him, and is already heated by drinking, he 
cannot refrain himself, he must get drunk: but might he not have done 
violence to his inclination before his blood was inflamed? Conscious 
of his weakness, might he not at least have avoided the dangerous com- 
pany he is in, and the sight of the sparkling liquor, in which all his 
good resolutions are drowned? 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. * 195 


Take one instance more of the imperfect liberty I plead for. Is not 
what I have said of civil, applicable to devotional liberty? You have 
not the power to Love God with all your heart; but may you not FEAR 
him a little? You cannot wrap yourself for one hour in the sublime 
contemplation of his glory; but may you not meditate for two minutes 
on death and judgment? St. Paul’s burning zeal is far above your 
sphere ; but is not the timorous inquistiveness of Nicodemus within your 
reach? You cannot attain the elevations of him who has ten talents of 
piety ; but may you not so use your one talent of consideration, as to 
gain two, four, eight, and so on, till the unsearchable riches of Christ 
are all yours? And, if I may allude to the emblematic pictures of the 
four evangelists, may you not ruminate upon earth with the ow of St. 
Luke, till you can look up to heaven with St. Matthew’s human face, 
fight against sin, with the courage of St. Mark’s lion, and soar up to- 
ward the Sun of righteousness, with the strong wings of St. John’s eagle ? 
Did not our Lord expect as much from the Pharisees, when he said to 
them, “ Ye hypocrites, how is it that you do not discern this [accepted ] 
time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right ?” 
Alas! how frequently do we complain of the want of power, when we 
have ten times more than we make use of! How many slothfully bury 
their talent, and peevishly charge God with giving them none! And 
how common is it to hear people, who are sincerely invited to the Gos- 
pel feast, say, “I cannot come,” who might roundly say, if they had 
Thomas’ honesty, “I will not believe!” The former of these pleas is 
indeed more decent than the latter: but is it not shamefully evasive ? 
And does it not amount to the following excuse :—“TI cannot come with- 
out taking up my cross; and as I wiil not do that, my coming is morally 
impossible?” A lame excuse this, which will pull down aggravated 
vengeance upon those who, by making it, trifle with truth, and their 
own souls, and with God himself. 

From the whole I conclude that our liberty, or free agency, consists 
in a limited ability to use our bodily and spiritual powers right or wrong 
at our option; and that: to deny mankind such an ability is as absurd as 
to say that a man cannot work, or beg, or steal, as he pleases ; bend the 
knee to God, or to Ashtaroth ; go to the house of prayer, or to the 
play house; turn a careless, or an attentive ear to a Divine message ; 
disbelieve, or give credit to an awful report ; slight, or consider a matter 
of fact; and act in a reasonable, or unreasonable manner, at his option. 

Is not this doctrine agreeable to the dictates of conscience, as well as 
to plain passages of Scripture? And when we maintain that, as often 
as our free will inclines to vital godliness\since the fall, it is touched, 
though not necessarily impelled by free grace: when we assert, in the 
words of our tenth article, that “‘ we have no power to do good works 
acceptable to God, without the grace of God, by Christ preventing [not 
forcing] us that we may have a coop will;” do we not sufficiently se- 
cure the honour of free grace? Say we not as much as David does in 
this passage: “Thy people [obedient believers] shall [or will] be willing 
[to execute thy judgments upon* thine enemies] in the day of thy power,” 

* That this is the true meaning of Psalm cx, 3, is evident from the context. 


Read the whole Psalm; compare it with Psalm ecxlix, 6; Mal. iv, 1, 2,3; and 
Rey. xix, 19; and you will see that ‘“‘the day of God’s power,” or ‘“‘the day of 


196 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


i. e. in the day of thy powerful wrath? Or, as we have it in the Common 
Prayer, “In the day of thy power shall the people offer free will [not 
bound will] offermgs?’ Do we not grant all that St. Paul affirms, when 
he says to the Philippians, ““ Work out your own salvation with fear, 
&c, for it is God that worketh in you both to wiz and to po?” i. e. 
God of his own good pleasure gives you a gracious talent of will and 
power: bury it not: use it “with fear:” lay it out “with trembling ;” 
lest God take it from you, and “give you up to a reprobate mind.” 
And is it not evident that these two passages, on which the rigid bound 
willers chiefly rest their mistake, are perfectly agreeable to the doctrine 
of the moderate free willers which runs through all the Scriptures, as 
the preceding pages demonstrate ? 

Tuirp Ossecrion or Zetores. Rational and Scriptural as the doc- 
trine of liberty is, President Edwards will root it up: and to succeed in 
his attempt, he fetches ingenious arguments from heaven and hell. . 


Superos, Acheronta movendo, 


he musters up all the subtleties of logic and metaphysics, with all the 
refinements of Calvinism, to defend his favourite doctrine of necessity. 
To the best of my remembrance, a considerable part of his book may 
be summed up in the following paragraph, which contains the most in- 
genious objections of the Calvinists :— 

The Arminians say that if we act necessarily we are neither punishable 
nor rewardable ; because we are neither worthy of blame, nor of praise. 
But the devil, who is punished, and who therefore is blameworthy, is 
necessarily wicked; he has no liberty to be good. And God, who de- 
serves ten thousand times more praises than we can give, is necessarily 
good; he has no liberty to be wicked. Hence it appears that the re- 
probates may be necessarily wicked like the devil, and yet may be justly 
punishable like him; and that the elect may be necessarily good like 
God and his angels, and yet that they may be, in their degree, praise- 
worthy like God, and rewardable like his angels. Therefore, the doctrine 
of the Calvinists is rational, as only supposing what is undeniable, 
namely, that necessary sins may jusily be punished in the reprobates ; 
and that necessary obedience may wisely be rewarded in the elect. And, 
on the other hand, the doctrine of the Arminians, who make so much 
ado about reason and piety, is both absurd and impious: absurd, as it 
supposes that the devil is not worthy of blame, because he sins neces- 
sarily ; and impious, as it msinuates that God does not deserve praise, 
because his goodness is necessary. 

This argument is plausible, and an answer to it shall conclude this 
dissertation, God is enthroned in goodness far above the region of 
evil; neither “can he be tempted of evil;” the excellence, unchange- 
ableness, and self sufficiency of his nature being every way infinite. 
He does not then exercise his liberty in choosing moral good or evil ; 
but, (1.) In choosing the various manners of enjoying himself accord- 
ing to al} the combinations that may result from his unity in trinity, and 
from his trinity in unity, (2.) In regulating the infinite variety of his 
external productions. (3.) In appointing the boundless diversity of 


God’s army,” is the day of his wrath against his enemies: a day this which is 
expressly mentioned two verses after, and described in the rest of the Psalm. 


eS —— 


—————— s 


ee ee ee 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 197 


rewards and punishments, with which he crowns the obedience or dis- 
obedience of his rational creatures. (4.) In finding out different me- 
thods of overruling the free agency of men and angels; and of sus 
pending the laws by which he governs the material world. And, (5.) 
In stamping different classes of beings with different signatures of his 
eternal power and Godhead; and in indulging, with multifarious dis- 
coveries of himself, the innumerable inhabitants of the worlds which 
he has created, or may yet condescend to create. 

On the other hand, the devil is sunk far beldw the region of virtue and 
bliss ; neither can he be tempted of good, on account of his cohsum- 
mate wickedness, and fixed aversion to all holiness. His liberty of 
choice is not then exercised about moral good and evil; but about va- 
rious ways of doing mischief, procuring himself some ease, and trying 
to avoid the natural evils which he feels or fears. 

This is not the case of man, who inhabits, if I may use the expres. - 
sion, a@ middle region between heaven and hell; a region where light 
and darkness, virtue and vice, good and evil, blessing and cursing, are 
yet before him, and where he is in a state of probation, that he may be 
rewarded with heaven, or punished with hell, “ according to his good or 
bad works.” It is then as absurd in President Edwards to. confound our 
liberty with that of God and of the devil, as it would be in a geographer 
to confound the equinoctial line with the two poles. 

A comparison may illustrate this conclusion. As the mechanical 
liberty of a pair of just scales consists in a power gradually to ascend 
as high, or to descend as low as the play of the beam permits; so the 
moral liberty of rationals 2m a state of probation, consists in a gracious 
power gradually to ascend in goodness quite to their zenith in heaven, 
and in a natural power to descend in wickedness quite to their nadir in 
hell ; so immensely great is the play of the moral scales! God’s will, 
by the perfection of his nature, being immovably fixed in the height of 
all goodness, cannot stoop to an inferior good, much less to evil: and 
the devil, being sunk in the depth of all wickedness, and daily confirm- 
ing himself in his iniquity, can no more rise in pursuit of goodness. 
Thus the presence of all wickedness keeps the scale of the prince of 
darkness fixedly sunk to the nethermost hell; while the absence of all 
unrighteousness keeps the scale of the Father of lights fixedly raised 
to the highest pitch of heavenly excellence. God is then quite above, 
and Satan quite below a state of probation. The one is good, and the 
other evil, in the highest degree of moral necessity. Not so man, who 
hovers yet between the world of light and the world of darkness—man, 
who has life and death, salvation and damnation placed within his reach, 
and who is called to “stretch forth his hand” to that which he will 
have, that “the reward of his hands may be given him.” 

Nor does it follow from this doctrine that God’s goodness is not praise- 
worthy, and that Satan’s wickedness is not worthy of blame: for although 
God is fixedly good, and Satan fixedly wicked, yet the goodness of God, 
and the wickedness of the devil are still of a moral nature ; and there- 
fore commendable or discommendable. I mean, (1.) That God’s good- 
hess consists in the perfect rectitude of his eternal will, and not in a 
want of power to do an act of injustice. And, (2.) That the devil’s 
wickedness consists in the complete perverseness of his obstinate will, 


198 EQUAL CHECK. [part 


and not in a complete want of power to do what is right. Examples 
will explain this :— 

A rock cannot do an act of justice or an act of injustice, because 
reason and free agency do not belong to a stone; therefore,*the praise 
of justice and the dispraise of injustice, can never be wisely bestowed 
upon arock. Ifa rock fall upon the man who is going to murder you, 
and crushes him to death, you cannot seriously return it thanks ; because 
it fell without any good intention toward you ; nor could it possibly help 
falling just then.* Not so’ the “ Rock of ages,” the parent of rationals 
and free agents: he does justice with the highest certainty, and yet with 
the highest liberty: I say with the highest liberty ; because, if he would, 
he coup, with the greatest ease, do what to me appears inconsistent 
with the Scriptural description of his attributes. Could he not, for ex- 
ample, to please Zelotes, make “efficacious decrees” of absolute repro- 
bation, that he might secure the sin and damnation of his unborn crea- 
tures? Could he not protest again and again that “he willeth not 
primarily the death of sinners, but rather that they should turn and 
live ;” when, nevertheless, he has primarily, yea absolutely appointed 
that most of them shall never turn and live? Could he not openly 
“command all men every where to repent,” upon pain of eternal death, 
and yet keep most men every where from repenting, by giving them up 
to a reprobate mind from their mother’s womb, as he is supposed to 
have done by the myriads of “ poor creatures” for whom, if we believe 
the advocates of Calvinistic grace, Christ never procured one single 
grain of penitential grace? Could he not invite “all the ends of the 
earth to look unto him, and be saved,” and call himself the Saviour o 
the world, and the Saviour of all men, though especially of them that be- 
lieve, (of all men by initial salvation ; and of them that believe and obey 
by eternal salvation,) when yet he determined from all eternity that there 
should be neither Saviour nor initial salvation, but only a damner and 
finished damnation for the majority of mankind? Could he not have 
caused his only begotten Son to assume a human form, and to weep, 
yea, bleed over obstinate sinners ; protesting that he “ came to save the 
world, and to gather them as a hen gathers her brood under her wings ;” 
when yet from all eternity he had absolutely ordained* their wicked- 
ness and damnation to illustrate his glory? In a word, could he not 
prevaricate from morning till night, like the God extolled by Zelotes,— 
a God this, who is represented as sending his ministers to preach the 


* When Calvin speaks of the absolute destruction of ‘‘so many nations, which, 
(una cum liberis eorum infantibus,) together with their little children, are involved 
without remedy in eternal death by the fall,” he says that ‘* God foreknew their 
end before he made man;” and he accounts for his foreknowledge thus: “* He 
foreknew it, because he had ordained it by his decree :” a decree this, which three 
lines above he calls “ horribly awful.” ‘‘Et ideo prescivit, quia decreto suo sic 
ordinarat. Decretum quidem horribile, fateor.’ And in the next chapter he ob- 
serves, that, ‘‘ Forasmuch as the reprobates do not obey the word of God, we may 
well charge their disobedience upon the wickedness of their hearts; provided we 
add at the same time that they were devoted to this wickedness, because, by the 
just and unsearchable judgment of God, they were raised up to illustrate his glory 
by their damnation.” ‘‘ Modo simul adjicilur, ideo in hanc pravitatem addictos, 
quia justo, et inscrutabili Dei judicio suscitati sunt, ad gloriam ejus sua damna- 
lione illustrandam.” This Calvinism unmasked may be seen in Calvin’s Insti. 
tutes, third book, chap. 23, sec. 7, and chap. 24, sec. 14, 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 199 


Gospel [i. e. to offer “finished and eternal salvation” ] to every creature, 
when his unconditional, efficacious decree of reprobation, and the par- 
tiality of Christ’s atonement, leave to multiplied millions no other pros- 
pect, but that of finished and eternal damnation? Could not God, I 
say, do all this if he would? Do not even some good men indirectly 
represent him as having acted, and as continuing to act in that manner 
Now if he does it not, when he has full power to do it; if he is de- 
termined not to sully his veracity by such shuffling, his goodness by 
such barbarity, his justice by such unrighteousness ; or, to use Abra- 
ham’s bold expression, if “the Judge of all the earth does right,” when, 
if he would, he could do wrong, to set off his “sovereignty” before a 
Calyinistic world; is not his goodness praiseworthy? Is it not of the 
moral kind ? 

The same might be said of the devil’s wickedness. Though he is 
confirmed in it, is it not still of a moral nature? Is there any other 
restraint laid upon his repenting, but that which he first lays himself? 
Could he not confess his rebellion, and suspend some acts of it, if he 
would? Could he not of two sins, which he has an opportunity to com- 
mit, choose the least, ¢f he were so minded? But, granting that he has 
lost all moral free agency, granting that he sins necessarily, or that he 
could do nothing better 2f he would ; I ask, Who brought this absolute 
necessity of sinning upon him? Was it another devil who rebelled five 
thousand years before him? You say, No; he brought it upon himself 
by his wilful, personal, unnecessary sin: and I reply, Then he is blame- 
worthy for wilfully, personally, and unnecessarily bringing that horrible 
misfortune upon himself: and therefore his case has nothing to do with 
the case of the children of men, who have the depravity of another 
entailed upon them, without any personal choice of their own. ‘Thus, 
if I mistake not, the doctrine of liberty, like the bespattered swan of the 
fable, by diving a moment in the limpid streams of truth, emerges fairer, 
and appears purer, for the aspersions cast upon it by rigid bound willers 
and fatalists, headed by Mr. Edwards and Mr. Voltaire. 


SECTION VIII. 


The fourth objection of Zelotes to a reconciliation with Honestus—in 
answer to it the reconciler proves, by a variety of quotations from the 
writings of the fathers, and of some eminent divines, and by the tenth 
article of our Church, that the doctrines of free grace and free will, as 
they are laid down in the Scripture Scales, are the very doctrines of 
the primitive Church, and of the Church of England—These doc- 
trines widely differ from the tenets of the Pelagians and ancient semi- 
Pelagians. 


Oxsection IV. “You have done your best to vindicate the doctrine 
of moderate free willers, and to point out a middle way between the 
sentiments of Honestus and mine, or to speak your own language, 
between rigid free willers and rigid bound willers: but vou have not yet 
gained your end: for, if you have Pelagius and Mr. Wesley on your 


200 EQUAL CHECK. [Parr 


side, the primitive Church and the Church of England are for us: nor 
are we afraid to err in so good company.” 

Answer. Ihave already observed that, like true Protestants, we rest 
our cause upon right reason and plain scriptures : and that both are for 
us, the preceding sections, [ hope, abundantly prove. Nevertheless, to 
show you that the two Gospel axioms can be defended upon any ground, 
I shall, first, call in the Greek and Latin fathers, that you may hear from 
their own mouths how greatly they dissent from you. Secondly, to cdr- 
roborate their testimony I shall show that St. Augustine himself, and 
judicious Calvinists have granted all that we contend for concerning 
free will and the conditionality of efernal salvation. And, thirdly, I 
shall confirm the sentiment of the fathers by our articles of religion, 
one of which particularly guards the doctrine of free will evangelically 
connected with and subordinated to free grace. 

I. I grant that when St. Augustine was heated by his controversy 
with Pelagius, he leaned too much toward the doctrine of fate ; meaning 
by it the overruling, efficacious will and power of the Deity, whereby he 
sometimes rashly hinted that all things happen: (see the note, page 
185:) but in his best moments he happily dissented from himself, and 
agreed with the other fathers. ‘Take some proofs of their aversion to 
fatalism and bound will, and of their attachment to our supposed 
“heresy.” 

1. Jusrry Marryr, who flourished in the second century, says :— 
Si fato fieret ut esset aut improbus aut bonus ; nec alii quidem probi essent, 
nec alix mali. (Apol. 2.) That is, “If it happen by fate (or necessity) 
that men are either good or wicked ; the good were not good, nor should 
the wicked be wicked.” 

2. TeRTULLIAN, his contemporary, is of the same sentiment: Ceterum 
nec boni nec mali merces jure pensaretur e2, qui aut bonus aut malus neces- 
sitate fuit inventus, non voluntate. (Trrr. lib. 2, contra Mare.) “No 
reward can be justly bestowed, no punishment justly inflicted upon him 
who is good or bad by necessity, and not by his own choice.” In the 
fifth chapter of the same book he asserts that God has granted man 
liberty of choice, ué sui dominus constanter occurreret, et bono sponte ser- 
vando, et malo sponte vitando: quoniam et alias positum homineti ie 
judicio Det, oportebat justum illud efficere de arbitrii sui meritis: “that 
he might constantly be master of his own conduct by voluntarily doing 
good, and by voluntarily avoiding evil: because, man being appointed 
for God’s judgment, it was necessary to the justice of God’s sentence 
that man should be judged according to [meritis] the deserts of his 
free will.” 

3. Irenzxus, bishop of Lyons, who flourished also in the second cen- 
tury, bears thus his testimony against bound will :—Homo vero ration- 


abilis, et secundum hoc similis Deo, liber arbitrio factus, et sue potestatis, 


ipse sibi causa est ut aliquando quidem frumentum, aliquando autem palea 
fiat ; quapropter et juste condemnabitur. (Lib. iv, adv. Heret. cap. 9.) 
That is, “Man, a reasonable being, and in that respect like God, is 
made free in his will; and being endued with power to conduct himself, 
he is a cause of his becoming sometimes wheat and sometimes chaff ;* 


* According to the doctrine maintained in these pages, God is the first cause 


PHIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 201 


therefore will he be justly condemned.” Again: Dedit ergo Deus 
bonum, &c, et qui operantur quidum illud, gloriam et honorem percipient, 
quonium operati sunt bonum, cum possent non operari illud. Hi autem 
qui illud non operantur, judicium Dei nostri recipient, quoniam non sunt 
operati bonum cum possent operari illud : “ God gives goodness, and they 
who do good shall obtain honour and glory; because they have done 
good, when they could forbear doing it. . And they who do it not, shall 
receive the just judgment of our God ; because they have not done good, 
when they could have done it.” Once more: Non tantum in operibus, 
sed etiam in fide, liberum, et sue potestatis, arbitrium servavit homini 
Deus. (ibid. lib. 4, cap. 62.) “God has left man’s will free, and at 
his own disposal, not only with regard to works, but also with regard to 
faith.” Nor did Irenzeus say here more than St. Augustine does in this 
well-known sentence: Posse credere est omnium, credere vero fidelium : 
“To have a power to believe is the prerogative of all men; but actually 
to believe is the prerogative of the faithful.” 

4. Ortcen nobly contends for liberty: he grants rather too much 
than too little of it: he continually recommends xaryv wpooupetw, “a 
good choice,” which he frequently calls cyy porny rsx auregsciz, “the 
inclination of the powerful principle whereby we are masters of our own 
conduct.” He observes that we are not at liberty to see, but (ro xpivoi— 
To xpncaddo ryv pomnv, ryv svdoxyndw) “to judge; to use our power of 
choice and our approbation.” And int the solution of some scriptures, 
which seem to contradict one another, he refutes the sentiment of those 
who reject the doctrine of our co-operating with Divine grace, and who 
think zx yusrepov epyov sivou ro xat’ apsrny Eisv, aAAM wavra Seiov Yopiv, 
“That it is not our own work to lead a virtuous life, but that it is entirely 
the work of Divine grace.” 

5. Sr. Cyprian and Lacranrius speak the same language, as the 
learned reader may see by turning to the seventh book of Vossius’ His- 
tory of Pelagianism. Nor did St. Basil dissent from them, if we may 
judge of his sentiments by the following passage, which is extracted 
from his thirty-seventh homily, where he proves that God is not the 
author of evil:—“ What is forced is not pleasing to God, but what is 
fone from a truly virtuous motive: and virtue comes from the will, not 
. from necessity.” Hence it appears that, in this father’s account, neces- 
sity 1s a kind of compulsion contrary to the freedom of the will. “ For,” 
adds he, “the will depends on what is within us; and within us is free 
will.” 

6. Grecorius Nyssenus is of one mind with his brother Sr. Basix. 
For speaking of faith, he says, that it is placed “within the reach of 
our free election.” And again: “We say of faith what the Gospel 
contains, namely, that he who is begotten by spiritual regeneraticn, 
knows of whom he is begotten, and what kind of a living creature he 
becomes. For spiritual regeneration is the only kind of regeneration 
_ which puts it in our power to become what we choose to be.” (Greg. 
Catech. Disc. chap. 36, and chap. 6.) 

7. Sr. Curysosrom is so noted an advocate for free will, that Canvin 
complains first of him. Part of Calvin’s complaint runs thus :—Habet 


of our conversion, or of our ‘‘ becoming wheat.” But man is the first cause of 
his own perversion, or his ‘“‘becoming chaff.” 


202 4 EQUAL CHECK. [part 


Chrysostomus alicubi, &c. (Inst. lib, 2, cap. 2, sec. 4.) That is, “St. 
Chrysostom says somewhere, ‘Forasmuch as God has put good and 
evil in our own power, (electionis liberwn donavit arbitrium,) he has 
given us a free power to choose the one or the other; and as he does 
not retain us against our will, so he embraces us when we are willing.’ ” 
Again: “Often a wicked man, if he will, is changed into a good man; 
and a good man, through sloth, falls away* and becomes wicked ; 
because God has endued us with free agency: nor does he make us do 
things necessarily, but he places proper remedies before us, and suffers 
all to be done according to the will of the patient,” é&e. From these 
words of St. Chrysostom, Calvin draws this conclusion :—Porro Greer 
pre aliis, atque inter eos singulariter Chrysostomus, in eatollenda 
humane voluntatis facultate modu excesserunt. 'That is, “* The Greek 
fathers above others, and among them especially Chrysostom, have 
exceeded the bounds in extolling the power of the human will.” Hence 
it appears that, Calvin himself being judge, the fathers, but more parti- 
cularly the Greek fathers, and among them St. Chrysostom, strongly 
opposed bound will and necessity. 

8. Sr. AmBrosz, a Latin father, was also a strenuous defender of 
the second Gospel axiom, which stands or falls with the doctrine of 
free will. Take two proofs of it :—Jdeo omnibus opera sanitatis detulit, 
ut quicunque periret mortis sue causas sibi adscribat ; qui curari noluit 
cum remedium haberet quo posset evadere. (Amb. lib. 2, de Cain et 
Abel, cap. 12.) That is, “ God affords to all the means of recovery, 
that whoever perishes may impute his own destruction to himself; for- 
asmuch as he would not be cured when he had a remedy whereby he 
might have escaped.” Again, commenting upon these words of Christ, 
“Jt is not mine to give,” &c, he says, Non est meum qui Justitiam servo, 
non Gratiam. Denique ad Patrem referens addidit, * Quibus paratum 
est,” ut ostendat Patrem quoque non petitionibus deferre solere, sed mE- 
RITIs; quia Deus personarum acceptor non est. Unde et apostolus ait, 


“ Quos prescivit predestinavit.” Non enim ante predestinavit. (Amb. . 


de fide. cap. 4.) That is, “It is not mine [to give the next seat to my 
person] in point of justice, for I do not speak in point of favour; 
referring the matter to his Father, he adds, To them for whom it is pre- 


pared, to show that the Father also [in point of reward] is not wont to - 


yield to prayer, but (meritis) to worthiness ; because God [when he aets 


* T have advanced several arguments to prove that Judas was sincere, when 
Christ chose him to the apostleship. I beg leave to confirm them by the judgment 
of two of the fathers. St.Chrysostom, in his fifty-second discourse, says, O Iovda; 
Baowewas vios Towrov nv, &c. That is, ‘“‘ Judas was at first a child of the kingdom, 
and heard it said to him with the disciples, ‘ You shall sit upon twelve thrones ? 
but at last he became a child of hell.” And St. Ambrose, upon Rom. ix, 13, nas 
these remarkable words, Non est personarum acceptio in prescientia Dei, &c, 
That is, ‘‘ There is no respect of persons in God’s foreknowledge ; for prescience is 
that whereby he knows assuredly how the will of every man will be, in which he 
will continue, and by which he shall be damned or crowned, &c. They who, as 
God knows also, will persevere in goodness, are frequently bad before ; and they 
who, as he knows also, will be found evil at last, are sometimes good before, &c. 
For both Saul and Judas were once good.” Hence it is, that he says, in another 
place, ‘‘Sometimes they are at first good, who afterward become and continue 


evil ane in this respect they are said to be written in the book of life, and blotted 
out of it.” 


a 
: 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 203 


as judge and rewarder] is no respecter of persons. Hence it is that the 
apostle says, Those whom God foreknew he predestinated. For he did 
not predestinate to reward them before he foreknew them” [as persons 
fit to be rewarded.] From this excellent quotation it appears that St. 
Ambrose maintained the two Gospel axioms, or the doctrines of grace 
and justice, of favour and worthiness, on which hang the election of dis- 
tinguishing grace, and the election of remunerative justice, which the 
Calvinists perpetually confound, and which I have explained, section 
twelfth. 

9. Sr. JrRome, warm as he was against Pelagius, is‘evidently of the 
same mind with the other fathers, where he says:—Liberi arbitrii nos 
condidit Deus. Nec ad virtutes nec ad vitia necessitate trahimur, Alio- 
quin ubt necessitas est, nec damnatio nec corona est. That is, “God 
hath endued us with free will. We are not necessarily drawn either to 
virtue or to vice. For where necessity rules, there is no room left either 
for damnation or for the crown.” Again, in his third book against the 
Pelagians, he says :—Etiam his qui mali futuri sunt, dari protestatem 
conversionis et penitentie. ‘That is, “‘ Even to those who shall be wicked, 
God gives power to repent and turn to him.” Again, upon Isaiah i, 
Liberum servat arbitrium, ut in utramque pariem, non ex prejudicio Dei, 
sed ex meritis singulorum, vel pena vel premium sit. “Our willis kept 
free to turn either way, that God may dispense his rewards and punish- 
ments, not according to his own prejudice, but according to the merits [that 
is, according to the works] of every one.” Once more: he says to Ctesi- 
phon, Frustra blasphemas, et ignorantium auribus ingeris, nos Liberium 
Arbitrium condemnare. Damnetur ille qui damnat. 'That is, “« You speak 
evil 6f us without ground ; you tell the ignorant that we condemn free 
will; but let the man who condemns it, be condemned.” 

When I read these explicit testimonies of Sr. Jerome, in favour of 
free will, I no longer wonder that Calvin should find fault with him, as 
well as with Sr. Curysosrom. Take Calvin’s own words: (Inst. lib. 
2, cap. 2, sec. 4.) Ait Hieronymus (Dial. 3, contra Pelag. &c.) Nostrum 
[est] offerre quod possumus ; Iilius [Dea] ‘implere quod non possumus. 
« Jerome. says, (in his third dialogue against Pelagianism,) at is our part 

‘to offer what we can. It is God’s part to fill up what we cannot. You 
see clearly by these quotations,” adds Calvin, “ that they [these fathers, 
upon the Calvinian plan,] attributed to man too much power to be virtu- 
ous.” Such a conclusion naturally becomes Calvin. But what I cannot 
help wondering at is, that Zelotes should indifferently call all the advo- 
cates for free will, Pelagians, when St. Jerome, who, next to St. Augus-. 
tine, distinguished himszlIf by his opposition to Pelagianism, is so strenu- 
ous a defender of the doctrine of free will, in the books which he wrote 
against Pelagius. 

10. Evipwantus confirms this doctrine where he says, Sane quidem 
justius a stellis, que necessitatem pariunt, pene repetantur, quam ab eo 
qui quod agit necessitate aductus aggreditur. (Epiph. advers. Her. |. 1.) 
“Tt would be more just to punish the stars, which make a wicked action 
necessary, than to punish the poor man, who does that wicked action by 
necessity.” He expresses hymself still more strongly in the same book. 
Speaking of the Pharisees, who were rigid Predestinarians, he says, Est 
illud vero extreme cujusdam imperitie, ne dicam amentie, cum resurrec- 


204 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


tionem mortuorum esse fateare, ac justissimum cujusque facti judicium 
constitutum, fatum nihilominus esse ullum asserere. Qui enim duo ista 
convenire possunt, JuDIcIUM atque FaTuM! That is, “It is extreme 
ignorance, not to say madness, to allow the resurrection of the dead, and 
a day of most righteous judgment for every action; and at the same 
time to assert that there is a destiny; for how can these two agree 
together, a JUDGMENT AND A DesTINy?” (or necessity ?) 

11. Sr. Bernarp grants rather more liberty than I contend for, where 
he says, Sola voluntas, quoniam pro ingentta libertate aut dissentire sibi, 
aut preter se in aliquo consentire nulla vi nulla cogitur necessitate, non 
immerito justum vel injustum, beatitudine seu miseria dignam ac capacem 
creaturam constituit, prout scilicet justitie, injustitieve consenserit. (Bern. 
De Grat. et lib. Arb.) That is, “The will alone can make a man 
deservedly just or unjust, and can deservedly render him fit for bliss or 
misery, as it consents either to righteousness or to iniquity ; forasmuch 
as the will, according to its innate liberty, cannot be forced to will or 
nill any thing against its own dictates.” 

12. Cyrittus ALExaNnprivs upon John, (book vi,.chap. 21,) vindica- 
ting God’s goodness against the horrid hints of those who make him the 
author of sin, as all rigid Predestinarians do, says with great truth :— The 
visible sun rises above our horizon, that it may communicate the gift 
of its brightness to all, and make its light shine upon all; but if any one 
shut his eyes or willingly turn himself from the sun, refusing the bene- 
fit of its light, he wants its illumination, and remains in darkness: not 
through the fault of the sun, but through his own fault. ‘Thus the true 
Sun who came.to enlighten those that sit in darkness, visited the earth, 
that in different manners and degrees he might impart to all the gift of 
knowledge and grace, and illuminate the inward eyes of all, &c. But 
many reject the gift of this heavenly light freely given to them, and have 
closed the eyes of their minds, lest so excellent an irradiation of the 
eternal light should shine unto them. It is not then through the defect 
of the true Sun, but only through their own iniquity,” i. e. through 
their own perverse free will. And, (book i, chap. 11,) the same father, 


speaking on the same subject, says, “ Let not the world accuse the word — 


of God and his eternal light; but its own weakness: for the Sun en- 
lightens, but man rejects the grace that is given him, blunts the edge of the 
understanding granted him, &c, and, as a prodigal, turns his sight to the 
creatures, neglecting to go forward, and through laziness and negligence 
[not through necessity and predestination] buries the illumination, and 
despises this grace.’ 

13. Cremens ALEXANDRINUs is exactly of the same sentiment for, 
calling “the Divine word” what St. Cyril calls “ Divine light,” he says, 
«The Divine word has cried ; calling all, knowing well those that will 
not obey; and yet, because it is 7n our power, either to obey or not to 
obey, that none may plead ignorance, it has made a righteous call, and 
requireth but that which is according to the ability and strength of every 
one.” (Crem. Arex. Strom. book ii.) 

14, The father who wrote the book De Vocatione Gentium, says, Si- 
cut qui crediderunt juvantur ut in fide maneant ; ita qui nondum credide- 
runt, juvantur ut credant: et quemadmodum illi in sua potestate habent, ut 


exeant ; ita et istt in sua habent potestate ut veniant. ‘That is, “ As they - 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. . 205 


that have believed are helped to abide in the faith; so they that have 
not yet believed are helped to believe ; and as the former have it in their 
power to go out, so the latter have it in their power to come in.” 

_ 15. Arnostus produces this objection of a heathen: “If the Saviour 
of mankind be come, as you say, why does he not save all?” and he 
answers it thus :—Patet omnibus fons vite, &c. That is,‘ The fountain 
of life is open to all, nor is any one deprived of the right of drinking : 
but if thy pride be so great that thou refusest the offered gift and bene- 
fits, &c, why dost thou blame him [Christ] who invites thee,” cujus sole 
sunt he partes, ut sub tui juris arbitrio fructum sue benignitatis exponat ? 
(Arn. Contra Gentes, lib. 2,) ‘whose full part it is to submit the frui 
of his bounty to a choice that depends upon thyself?” , 

16. Prosper, although he was St. Augustine’s disciple, does justice 
to the truth which I maintain. For speaking of some that fell away 
from holiness to uncleanness, he says, Non ex eo necessilatem pereundi 
habuerunt quia predestinati non sunt; sed ideo predestinati non sunt ; 
quia tales futuri ex voluitaria prevaricatione presciti sunt. (Prosp. Ad. 
Ob. iii, Gall.) That is, “ They did not lie under a necessity of perish- 
ing because they were not elected [to a crown of life ;] but they were 
not elected [to that reward] because they were foreknown to be such as 
they are by their voluntary iniquity.” The same father allows that it is 
absurd to believe a day of judgment, and to deny free will. Judicium 
futurum, says he, omnino non esset si homines Dei voluntate peccarent. 
(Pros. ad. 0bj. 10, Vince.) That is, “By no means would there be a 
day of judgment, if men sinned by the «will or decree of God.” The rea- 
son is plain, if we sinned through any necessity laid on us by “the will of 
God,” or by predestinating fate, we might say, like the heathen poet, 
Fati ista culpa est ; nemo fit fato nocens: “It is the fault of fate: neces- 
sity excuses any one.” 

17. Fuiernrivs, although he was also St. Augustine’s disciple, cuts 
up the docirine of bound will by the root, where he says :—Nec justiiia 
justia dicetur, si puniendum reum non invenisse, sed fecisse dicatur. Ma- 
jor vero injustitia, si lapso Deus retribuat penam, quem stantem dicitur 
predestinasse ad ruinam.” (Fute. |. 1, ad Mon. cap. 22.) That is, 
“Justice could not be said to be just if it did not find, but made man an 
offender. And the injustice would be still greater, if God, after having 
predestinated a man to ruin when he stood, inflicted punishment upon 
him after his fall.” 

18. If any of the fathers is a rigid bound willer, it is heated Aveus- 
TINE : nevertheless, in his cool moments, he grants as much free will as 
I contend for. Hear him: Nos quidem sub fato stellarum nullius homi. 
nis genesim ponimus, ut liberum arbitrium voluniatis, quo bene vel male 
viviiur, propter justum Dei judicium ab omni necessitalis vinculo vindt- 
cemus. (Auc. 1, 2, conir. Faust. c. 5.) That is, “ We place no man’s 
nativity under the fatal power of the stars, that we may assert the liberty 
of the will, whereby our actions are rendered either moral or immoral, 
and keep it free from every bond of necessity, on account of the mghteous 
judgment of God.” Again: Nemo habet in potestate quid veniat in men- 
tem ; sed conseniire vel dissentire proprie voluntatis est. (Auc. De Litera 
et Spiritu, cap. 34.) That is, “ Nobody can help what comes into his 
mind ; but to consent or to dissent from involuntary suggestions, is the pre- 


206 EQUAL CHECK. _ [Parr 


rogative of our own will.”* Once more: Jnitium salutis nostre a Deo 
miserante habemus ; ut acquiescamus salutifere inspirationi, nostre est 
potestatis. (De Dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis, cap. 21.) That is, “The — 
beginning of our salvation flows from the merciful God; but it is in our 
power to consent to his saving inspiration.” And what he means by 
“having a thing in our power,” he explains in these words, Hoe quis- 
que in sua potestate habere dicitur, quod si vult facit, si non vult non fa- 
cit. (Auc. De Spir. et lit. c. 31.) That is, “ Every one has that in his 
own power which he does if he will, and which he ean forbear doing if 
he will not do it.” 

Agreeable to this is that rational observation, which, I think, is St. 
Augustine’s, also :—Si non est liberum arbitrium, non est quod salvetur. 
Si non est gratia, non est unde salvetur: “If there be no free will, 
there is nothing to be saved: if there be no free grace, there is nothing 
whereby we may be saved :” a golden saying this, which is as weighty 
as my motto, “If you take away free grace, how does God save the 
world? And if you take away free will, how does he judge the world?” 

So great is the force of truth, that the same prejudiced father, com- 
menting upon this text, “ Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth 
himself,” 1 John iii, 3, does not scruple to say :—“ Behold after what 
manner he has not taken away free will, that the apostle should say, 
‘keepeth himself pure.’ Who keepeth us pure, except God? But God 
keepeth thee not thus against thy will. Therefore inasmuch as thou. 
joinest thy will to God, thou keepest thyself pure. Thou keepest thy- 
self pure, not of thyself, but by him who comes to dwell in thee. Yet 
because in this thou dost something of thine own will, therefore is some- 
thing also attributed to thee. Yet so it is ascribed to thee, that still thou 
mayest say, with the psalmist, ‘ Lord, be thou my helper!’ If thou sayest, 
‘Be thou my helper,’ thou dost something ; for if thou dost nothing, how 
does he helo?” Happy would it have been for the Church if St. Au- 
gustine haa always done justice in this manner to the second, as well as 
to the first Gospel axiom! He would not have paved the way for free 
wrath, and Antinomian free grace. Nor could Mr. Wesley do more 
justice to both Gospel axioms than Augustine does in the following 
words :—WNon illi debent sibi tribuere, qui venerunt, quia vocati vene- 
runt: nec illt, qui noluerant venire, debuerant alteri tribuere, sed tan- 
tum sibi: quia ut venirent vocati in libera erat voluntate. (Ave. lib. 
83, Questionum.) “They that came [to Christ] ought not to impute 
it to themselves, because they came, being called: and they that would 
not come, ought not to impute it to another, but only to themselves, be- 

* Dr. Tucker judiciously unfolds St. Augustine’s thought, where he says, 
‘“There is a sense, in which it may be allowed on the semi-Pelagian, [semi- 
Augustinian] or Arminian plan, that grace is irresistible: but it is a sense that 
can do no manner of service to the cause of Calvinism. Grace, for instance, 
especially prevenient, or preventing grace may be considered as a precious 
gift, or universal endowment, like the common gifts of health, strength, &c, in 
which case the recipient must necessarily receive them; for he has not a power 
to refuse. But after he has received them, he may choose whether he will 
apply them to any good and salutary purposes or not: and on this freedom 
of choice rests the proper distinction between good and evil, virtue and vice, mo- 
rality and immorality. Grace therefore must be received; but, after it is received, 


it may be abused: the talent may be hid in a napkin, and the Spirit may be 
quenched, or have a despite done to it.” : 


- THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 207 


cause, when they were called, it was in the power of ¢heir free will to 
come.” Deus non deserit nisi desertus: “God forsakes no man, un- 
less he be first forsaken.” (Quest. 68.) Here is a right dividing of 
the word of truth! a giving God the glory of our salvation, without 
charging him with our destruction ! 

Nay, Sr. Jerome and Sr. Auveusrine, notwithstanding their warmth 
against Pelagius, have not only at times strongly maintained our remu- 
nerative election ; but by not immediately securing the election of dis- 
tinguishing -grace, they have really granted him far more than I in 
conscience can do. ‘Take the following instances of it :— 

Sr. Jerome upon Gal. i, says, Ex Dei prescientia evenit, ut quem scit 
justum futurum, prius diligat quam oriatur ex utero: “It is owing to 
God’s prescience that he loves those who he foresees will become just, 
before they come out of their mother’s womb.” Again, upon Mal. i, he 
says, Dilectio et odium Dei vel ex prescientia nascitur fuiurorum vel ex 
operibus: “God’s love and hatred spring from his foreknowledge of 
future events, or from our works.” Nay, in his very dispute with the 
Pelagians, (book ii,) he declares that God eligit quem bonum cernit, 
“chooses him whom he sees good :” which is entirely agreeable to this 
unguarded assertion of St. Augustine :—Nemo eligitur nisi jam distans 
ab illo qui rejicitur. Unde quod dictum est, quia “ elegit nos Deus 
ante mundi constitutionem,” non video quomodo sit dictum, nisi de pre- 
scientia fidei et operum pietatis. (AuG. Quest. 2, ad Simplicianum.), 
That is, Nobody is chosen but as he already differs from him that is 
rejected. Nor do I see how it can be said that “God has chosen us 
before the beginning of the world,” unless this be said with respect to 
God’s foreknowledge of our faith and works of piety.” * 

I call these assertions of St. Jerome and St. Augustine “ unguarded,” 
because they so maintain the election of remunerative justice as to leave 
no room for the election of distinguishing grace, which I have main- 
tained in my exposition of Rom. ix, and Eph. i: an election this, which 
the Pelagians overlook, and which St. Paul secures when he says that 
God chose Jacob to the privileges of the covenant of peculiarity, “ before 
he had done any good, that the purpose of God according to the elec- 
tion [of superior grace] might stand not of works, but of [the superior 
kindness of ] him that calleth :” an important election this, inconsistently 
given up by St. Augustine, when speaking of Jacob he says, in the 
aboye-quoted treatise, Non electus est ut fieret bonus, sed bonus factus 
eligi potuit: “He was not chosen that he might become good; but, 
being made good, he could be chosen.” 

I shall close these quotations from. the fathers, with one more from 
St. Irenzeus, who was Polycarp’s disciple, and flourished immediately 
after the apostolic age :—Quoniam omnes ejusdem sunt nature, et potentes 
relinere et operari bonum, et potentes rursum amittere id, et non facere ; 
juste apud homines sensatos, quanto magis apud Deum, ali quidem laudan- 
tur, et dignum percipiunt testimonium electionis bone, et perseverantie ; 
alii vero accusantur, et dignum percipiunt damnum eo quod justum et 
bonum reprobaverunt. (Iren. Adv. Her. lib. wv, cap. 74.) ‘That is, 
“ Forasmuch as all men are of the same nature, having power to held 
and to do that which is good, and having power again to lose it, and not 
to do what is right; before men of sense, (and how much more before 


208 EQUAL CHECK. : [PaRT 


God!) some are justly praised, and receive a worthy testimony, for 
making a good choice and persevering therein; while others are justly 
accused, and receive condign punishment, because they refused what is 
just and sight.” 

If I am not mistaken, the preceding quotations prove, (1.) That the 
fathers in general pleaded for as much free will as we contend for. 
(2.) That the two champions of the doctrines of grace, Prosper and 
Fulgentius, and their Predestinarian leader, St. Augustine, when they 
considered (justum Dei judicium) “the righteous judgment of God,” 
have (at times at least) maintained the doctrine of liberty as strongly as 
the rest of the fathers. And, (3.) That St. Augustine himself was so 
carried away once by the force of the arguments and scriptures which 
support the remunerative election of impartial justice, as rashly to give 
up the gratuitous election of distinguishing grace. 

Should any of the above-mentioned fathers have contradicted himself, 
(as St. Augustine has done for one,) I hope I shall not be charged with 
“sross misrepresentations” for quoting them when they speak as the 
oracles of God. If at any time they deviate from that blessed rule, let 
them defend their deviations if they can; or let Zelotes and Honestus 
(who follow them when they go out of the way) do it for them. I re- 
peat it, like a true Protestant, I rest the cause upon right reason and 
plain Scripture ; and if I produce the sentiments of the fathers, it is 
merely to undeceive Zelotes, who thinks that all moderate free willers 
are Pelagian heretics, and that the fathers were as rigid bound willers 
as himself. 

II. Proceed we to confirm the preceding quotations by the testimony 
of some modern divines. 

1. Calvin says, Quasi adhuc integer staret homo, semper apud Latinos 
Liberi Arbitrat nomen extitit. Gracus vero non puduit mullo arrogantius 
usurpare vocabulum. Siquidem avrszovciwv diaerunt, acsi potestas sui 
ipsius penes hominem fuisset. (Inst. lib. 2, cap. 2, sec. 4.) “The Latin 
fathers have always retained the word rreE wiLL, as if man stood yet 
upright. As for the Greek fathers, they have not been ashamed to 
make use of a much more arrogant expression ;, calling man avregoudiov, 
[ free agent, or self manager :] just as if man had a power to govern 
himself.” This concession of Calvin decides the question. I need only 
observe that Calvin wrongs the fathers when he insinuates that*they 
ascribed liberty to man, “as if man stood yet upright.” No: they 
attributed to man a natural liberty to evil, and a gracious blood-béught 
liberty to good. Thus, like our reformers, they maintained man’s free 
agency without derogating from God’s grace. 

2. Bishop ANDREws, a moderate Calvinist, says, “I dare not com 
demn the fathers, who almost all assert we are elected and predestinated 
according to faith foreseen ; that the necessity of damnation is hypothe- 
tical, not absolute, &c. That God is ready and at hand to bestow and 
communicate his grace, &c. It is the fault of men themselves, that 
what is offered is not actually conferred : for grace is not wanting to us, 
but we are wanting to that.” And this he confirms, by this passage 
from St. Augustine :— All men may turn themselves from the love of 
visible and temporal things to keep God’s commands, if they will ; be- 
cause that light [Christ] is the light of all mankind.” * 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 20 


3. The doctrine of free will stands or falls with the conditionality of 
the covenant of grace. Hence it is that all rigid bound willers abhor 
the word condition: nevertheless, Mr. Robert, a judicious Calvinist, 
sees the tide of the contrary doctrine so strong, that he says, in his 
Mystery of the Bible, “Sound writers, godly and learned, ancient and 
modern, foreign and domestic, do unanimously subscribe to the condi- 
tionality of the covenant of grace, in the sense before stated :” a sense 
this, which Bishop Davenant clearly expresses in these words :—* Peter, 
notwithstanding his predestination, might have been damned, if he had 
voluntarily continued in his impenitency.” And Judas, notwithstanding 
his reprobation, might have been saved, if he had not voluntarily con- 
tinued in his impenitency. (Animadversions, p. 241.) 

4, Dr. Tucker observes, that although Vossius and Norris (who 
have each written a history of Pelagianism) differ in some points, yet 
they “agree that St. Augustine’s [Calvinian] positions were allowed by 
his warmest defenders at that very time to be little better than novelties, 
if compared with the writings of the most ancient fathers, especially of 
the Greek Church.” (Letter to Dr. Kippis, p. 79.) 

5. Episcorius, in his answer to Capellus, p. 1, says, “ Augustine, 
Prosper, and all the other divines of that age, [quin et priorum omnium 
seculorum Patres,| and the fathers of all the preceding ages, have not 
represented the grace of regeneration so special as to take away free 
will. On the contrary, they unanimously agree that the full effect of 
regenerating grace depends in some degree on man’s free will: inso 
much that, this grace being imparted, the consent or dissent of the 
human will may follow. I say the consent or dissent, lest some people 
should think that I understand by free will nothing but a certain willing. — 
ness.” The same learned author says, in his answer to Camero, chap. 
vi, “‘ What is plamer than that the ancient divines, for three hundred 
years after Christ, those at least who flourished before St. Augustine, 
maintained the liberty of our will, or an indifference to two contrary 
things, free from all internal or external necessity! &c. Almost all the 
reformed divines confess it, when they are pressed by the authority of 
the fathers. ‘Thus Melancthon on Rom. ix, says, Scriptores veteres 
omnes, preter Augustinum, ponunt aliquam causam electionis in nodis 
esse. "That is, “ All the ancient authors, except St. Augustine, allow 
that the cause of our election [to an eternal life of glory] is in some 
degree in ourselves.” 

6. Vosstus, a divine perfectly acquainted with all the ancient Chris- 
tian writers, says, in the sixth book of his Pelagian History, “The * 
Greek fathers anways, and axu the Latin fathers who lived before 
Augustine, are wont to say that those men are predestinated to life 
[eternal glory] whom God foresaw would live piously and well; or, as 
some others speak, whom God foresaw would believe and persevere, &c. 
Which they so interpret, that predestination unto glory is made ac- 
cording to God’s foreknowledge of faith and perseverance. But they 
did not mean the foreknowledge of such things, which a man was to do 
by the power of nature, but by the strength of prevenient and subsequent 
grace. ‘Therefore this consent of antiquity is of no service to the Pela- 
gians or semi-Pelagians, who both hold, that a reason of predestination, 
in all its effects, may be assigned from something in us. Whereas 

Vou. I. 14 

. 


210 EQUAL CHECK. . [PART 


the orthodox* fathers acknowledge that the first grace [i. e. initial, sal- 
vation] is not conferred of merit [or works] but freely. So that they 
thought no reason, from any thing in us, could be given of predestination 
to prevenient grace.” 

7. Dr. Davenanr, Bishop of Salisbury, and one of the English 
divines who were sent to the synod of Dort, (in his “ Animadversions 
upon a treatise entitled, God’s love to all Mankind,” Cambridge edition, 
1641, p. 48,) sets his seal to the preceding quotations in these words :— 
“The fathers, when they consider that the wills of men non-elected do 
commit all their evil acts freely, usually say that they had a power to 
have done the contrary.” And he himself espouses their sentiment : for 
speaking of Cain’s murder, Absalom’s incest, and Judas’ treason, he 
says, p. 253, “ All these sinful actions, and the like, are committed by 
reprobates, out of their own free election, having a power whereby they 
might have abstained from committing them.” Again, p. 198, he says, 
“'They [God’s decrees] leave the wills of men to as much liberty as the 
Divine presciencet does. And this is the general opinion of divines, 
though they differ about the manner of reconciling man’s liberty with’ 
God’s predestination.” Once more, p. 326, &c: ‘The decree of pre- 
terition neither taketh away any power of doing well, wherewith persons 
non-elected are endued, &c. Neither is it a decree binding God’s 
hands from giving them sufficient grace to do many good acts, which 
they wilfully refuse to do, &c. The non-elect have a power, or pos- 
sibility to believe or repent at the preaching of the Gospel ; which power 
might be reduced into act, if the voluntary frowardness and resistiveness 
of their own hearts were not the only hindering cause.” Page 72, the 
learned bishop grants again all that we contend for, in these words :— 
“In bad and wicked actions of the reprobate, their freedom of will is 
not vain; because thereby their consciences are convicted of their 
guiltiness and misdeserts, and God’s justice is cleared im their damna- 
tion. Neither is there any indeclinable or insuperable necessity domi- 
neering over free will, more than in the opinion of the remonstrants.” 
Once more, p. 177: “ Predestination (says he) did not compel or neces- 
sitate Judas to betray and sell his Master, &c. The like may be said 
of all other sinners who commit such sins upon deliberation, and so pro- 
ceed to election, [i. e. to choose evil ;] having in themselves a natural 
power of understanding, whereby they were able otherwise to have deli- 
berated, and thereupon otherwise to have chosen. And we see by expe- 
rience that traitors and adulterers, fully bent to commit such wicked acts, 
can, and oftentimes do refrain putting them in practice upon better deli- 
beration. This is a demonstration that they can choose the doing or the 
forbearing to do such wicked acts.” . 

From these quotations it appears that, when judicious and candid 
Calvinists have to do with judicious and learned remonstrants, they are 


* J desire the reader to take notice that this doctrine of the absolute freedom 
of prevenient grace, or initial salvation, is all along maintained in my first Scale; 
and that if Vossius’ account of the semi-Pelagians is exact, Zelotes cannot justl 
charge us with semi-Pelagianism: and we have as much right to be called ortho- 
dox as the fathers themselves. 

+ This would be true if it were spoken of the predestination which I contend 
for: but it is a great mistake when it is affirmed of the doctrine of efficacious, 
absolute predestination maintained by Zelotes. 


— a 


/THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. ee || 


obliged to turn moderate free willers, or fly in the face of the sacred 
writers, the fathers, and the best divines of their own persuasion. 

Since the preceding pages were written, Providence has thrown in my 
way Dr. Wuirsy’s Discourse on the points of doctrine which are bal- 
anced in the “ Scripture Scales.” He highly deserves a place among 
the modern divines who confirm the contents of this section, concerning 
the antiquity of the doctrine of free will, evangelically connected with 
the doctrines of free grace and just wrath. I therefore produce here 
the following extract from his useful book, second edition, printed in 
London, 1735 :— 

In the preface, p. 3, he says, with respect to the leading doctrines of 
election and reprobation, in which he entirely dissents from Calvin: “I 
found I still sailed with the stream of antiquity, seeing only one, St Au- 
gustine, with his two boatswains, Prosper and Fulgentius, tugging hard 
against it, and often driven back into it by the strong current of Scripture, 
reason, and common sense.” As a proof of this, the doctor produces, 
among many more, the following quotations from the fathers, which I 
transcribe only in English ; referring those who wish to see the Greek 
or Latin to the doctor’s discourses, where the books, the pages, and the 
very words of the fathers are quoted :— 

Page 95, &c, Dr. Whitby says, “They [the fathers] unanimously 
declare that God hatn left it in the power of man ‘ to turn to vice or virtue,’ 
says Justin Martyr: ‘to choose or refuse faith and obedience, to believe 
or not, say Irenzeus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, and St. Cyprian : 
‘that every one, &c, renders himself either righteous or disobedient,’ 
says Clemens of Alexandria: ‘that God hath left in our own power to 
turn to, or from good; to be good or bad, to do what is righteous or 
unrighteous :’ so Athanasius, Epiphanius, Macarius, St. Chrysostom, 
Theodoret, and Cyril of Alexandria: ‘that our happiness or punishment 
depends on our own choice ; that itis our own choice to be a holy seed, 
or the contrary ; to fall into hell, or enjoy the kingdom; to be children 
of the night or the day: by virtue to be God’s or by wickedness to be 
the devil’s children:’ so Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Chrysostom, and 
Gregory Nyssen: ‘that we are vessels of wrath, or of mercy, from our 
own choice, every one preparing himself to be a vessel of wrath from 
his own wicked inclination ; or to be a vessel of Divine love by faith, 
hecauSe they have rendered themselves fit for [rewarding] mercy :’ so 
Origen, Macarius, Chrysostom, Aicumenius, and Theophylact.” 

Page 336, &c, the doctor has the following words and striking quo- 
tations :—“ All these arguments [for the freedom of the will of man] are 
strongly confirmed by the concurrent suffrage, and the express and fre- 
quent declarations of the fathers. ‘Thus Justin Martyr having told us 
that man would not be worthy of praise or recompense, ‘did he not 
choose good of himself, nor worthy of punishment for doing evil, if he 
did not this* of himself, says, ‘This the Holy Spirit hath taught us by 


* This good father, to guard the doctrine of grace as well as that of justice, 
should have observed that free grace is the first cause, and free will the second, 
in our choice of moral good; but that free will is the first cause in our choice of’ 
moral evil. Forgetting to make thése little distinctions, he has given the Cal- 
vinists just room to complain, and has afforded the Pelagians a precedent to bear 
hard upon the doctrine of grace. Should some prejudiced reader think that this 
doctrine ascribes too much to man, because it makes free will a first cause in the 


212 EQUAL CHECK. ‘(parr 


Moses in these words, See, I have set before thee good and evil ; choose the 
good.’ Clemens Alexandrinus says, ‘ The prophecy of Isaiah saith, If 
you be willing, &c, demonstrating that both the choice and the refusal, 
(viz. of faith and experience, of which he there speaketh,) are in our own 

ower.’ ‘Tertullian pronounces them ‘ unsound in the faith, corrupters 
of the Christian discipline, and excusers of all sin, who so refer all things 
to the will of God, by saying, Nothing is done without his appointment, 
as that we cannot understand that any thing is left to ourselves to do.’ 
St. Cyprian proves, Credendi vel non credendi libertatem in arbitrio 
positam, ‘that to believe or not, is left to our own free choice,’ from 
Deut. xxx, 19, and Isa. i, 19. Theodoret, having cited these words of 
Christ, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink, adds: ‘Ten thou- 
sand things of this nature may be found, both in the Gospels and other 
writings of the apostles, clearly manifesting the liberty and self election 
of the nature of man.’ St. Chrysostom speaks thus :—‘ God saith, If 


you will, and if you will not, giving us power, and putting it in our own 


option to be virtuous or vicious. The devil saith, Thou canst not avoid 
thy fate. God saith, I have put before thee fire and water, life and death, 


stretch forth thy hand to whether of them thou wilt. .The devil says, [tis — 


"not in thee to stretch forth thy hand to them.’ St. Austin proves, from 
those words of Christ, Make the tree good, &c, or make the tree evil (in 
nostra potestate situm esse mutare voluntatem,) ‘that it is put in our own 
power to change the will.’ It would be endless to transcribe all that the 

fathers: say upon this head. Origen is also copious in this assertion: 
for having cited these words, And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy 
God require of thee? he adds: ‘ Let them blush at these words, who 
deny that man has free will, How could God require that of man 
which he had not in his power to offer him? And again: ‘The soul,’ 
saith he, ‘does not incline to either part out of necessity, for then neither 
vice nor virtue could be ascribed to it; nor would its choice of virtue 
deserve reward; nor its declination to vice punishment. But the 
liberty of the will is preserved in all things, that it may incline to what 
it will; asit iswritten, Behold I have set before thee life and death.’ St. 
Augustine also, from many passages in which the Scripture saith, Do not 
so, or so; or do this, or that, lays down this general rule: that all such 
places sufficiently demonstrate the liberty of the will: and this he saith 
against them, qui sic gratiam Dei defendunt, ut negent liberum arbi- 

_trium, ‘who so assert the grace of God, as to deny the liberty of the 
will.’ ” 

Page 340. “They [the fathers] add, that all God’s commands and 


choice of moral evil, I answer two things: (1.) To make God the first cause of 
moral evil is to turn Manichee, and assert that there is an evil as well as a good 
principle in the Godhead. (2.) When we say that free will chooses moral eyil 
of itself, without necessity, and is, of consequence, the first cause of its own evil 
choice ; we do not mean that free will is its own first cause. No: God made the 
free-willing soul, and freely endued man with the power of choosing withont ne- 
cessity. Thus God’s supremacy is fully secured. If, therefore, in the day of 
probation, we have the cast, when good and evil are set before us; our free will 
is not placed on a level with God by this tremendous power, but we place our- 
selves voluntarily under the rewarding sceptre of free grace, or the iron rod of 
just wrath. By this mean God maintains both his sovereignty as a king, and 
his justice as a judge; while man is still a subject fit to be graciously rewarded 
vr justly punished, according to the doctrines of free gYace and just wrath. 


i 


. 
THIRD. |] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 213 


prohibitions, &c, would be vain and unreasonable, and all his punish- 
ments unjust, and his rewards groundless, if man, after the fall, had not 
still the liberty todo what is commanded, and forbear what is forbidden. 
For, saith St. Austin, ‘the Divine precepts would profit none, if they had 
not free will, by which they, doing them, might obtain the promised 
rewards, &c. These precepts cut off men’s excuse from ignorance,’ &c. 
But then, ‘because others,’ saith he, ‘accuse God of being wanting in 
giving them power to do good or inducing them to sin :’ against these 
men he cites that known passage of the son of Sirach, God left man in 
the hands of his counsel, if he would to keep the commandments, &c. 
And then cries out, ‘ Behold, here, a very plain proof of the liberty of the 
human will! &c, for how does he command, if man hath not free will or 
power to obey? What do all God’s commands show, but the free will of 
man? For they would not be given, if man had not that freedom of 
will by which he could obey them.’ And therefore in his book, De 
Fide, against the Manichees, who denied that man had free will, and . 
that it was in his power to do well or ill, he makes this an indication of 
their blindness :—‘ Who,’ saith he, ‘ will not cry out that it is folly to 
command him who has not liberty to do what is commanded ; and that 
it is unjust to condemn him who has it not in his power to do what is 
required? And yet these miserable men [the Manichees] understand 
not that they ascribe this wickedness and injustice to God.’ Clemens 
of Alexandria declares ‘that neither praises nor reprehensions, rewards- 
nor punishments are just, if the soul has not the power of choosing or 
abstaining: but evil is involuntary.? Yea, he makes this ‘the very 
foundation of salvation, without which there could be neither any 1va- 
sonable baptism, nor Divine ordering of our natures, because faith would 
not be in our own power.’ ‘The soul,’ says Origen, ‘acts by her 
own choice, and it is free for her to incline to whatever part she will: 
and therefore God’s judgment of her is just, because of her own ac- 
cord she complies with good or bad monitors.’ ‘One of these two 
things is necessary,’ saith Epiphanius, ‘either that there should be no 
judgment, because men act not freely; or if laws be justly made by 
God, and punishments threatened to, and inflicted on the wicked, and 
God’s judgments be according to truth, there is no fate; for therefore 
is one punished for his sins, and another praised for his good works, 
because he has it in his. power to sin or not.’ ‘For how,’ says Theo- 
doret, ‘can he justly punish a natur€ [with endless torments] which 
had no power to do good, but was bound in the bonds of wickedness?” 
And again: ‘God, having made the rational nature with power over its 
own actions, averts men from evil things, and provokes them to do what 
is good by laws and exhortations, but he does not necessitate the un- 
willing to embrace what is better, that he may not overturn the bounds 
of nature.’ Innumerable are the passages of this nature, which might 
be cited from the fathers.” . 

Page 361, &c, the doctor produces again many quotations from the 
fathers, in defence of liberty. Take some of them: “Justin Martyr 
argues: ‘If man has not power by his free choice to avoid evil, and 
to choose the good, he is unblamable, whatsoever he does.’ Origen, in 
his Dissertation against Fate, declares ‘that the asserters of it do free , 
men from all fault; and cast the blame of all the evil that is done upon 


214 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


God.’ Eusebius declares ‘that this opinion absolves sinners, as doin; 
nothing on their own accord which was evil; and would east all the 
blame of all the wickedness committed in the world upon God and u 

his providence.’ ‘That men lie under no necessity from God’s fore- 


knowledge [which was of old the chief argument of the fatalists, es- 


poused of late by Mr. Hobbes, and is still made the refuge of the Pre- 
destinarians] may be thus proved,’ saith Origen, ‘ because the prophets 
are exhorted in the Scripture to call men to repentance, and to do this 


in such words, as if it were unknown whether they would turn to God, | 


or would continue in their sins; as in those words of Jeremiah, Per. 
haps they will hear, and turn every man from his evil way: and this is 
said, not that God understood not whether they would do this or not, but 
to demonstrate the almost equal balance of their power so to do, and 
that they might not despond, or remit of their endeavours by an imagi- 


nation that God’s foreknowledge laid a necessity upon them, as not 


_leaving it in their power to turn, and so was the cause of their sin.’ 
‘If men,’ says Chrysostom, ‘ do» pardon their fellow men, when they 
are necessitated to do a thing, much more should this be done to men 
compelled by fate [or by decrees] to do what they do; for if it be ab- 
surd to punish them, who by the force of barbarians are compelled to 
any action, it must be more so to punish him who is compelled by a 
stronger power.’ ‘If fate be established,’ says Eusebius, ‘ philosophy 
and piety are overthrown.’ ” 

Page 364, the doctor adds :—“'Though there is in the rational soul a 
power to do evil, ‘it is not evil on that account,’ saith Didymus Alexan- 
drinus, ‘ but because she will freely use that power; and this is not only 
ours, but the opinion of all who speak orthodoxly of rational beings.’ 
St. Augustine lays down this as the true definition of sin :—<‘ Sin is the 
will to obtain or retain that which justice forbids, and from which i és 


free for us to abstain.’ Whence he concludes ‘that no man is worthy 


of dispraise or punishment, for not doing that which he has not power to 
do; and that if sin be worthy of dispraise and punishment, itis not to 
be doubted, (tunc esse peccatum cum et liberum est nolle) that our choice 
is sin, when we are free not to make that choice.’ ‘These things,’ 
saith he, ‘the shepherds sing upon the mountains, and the poets in the 
theatres, and the unlearned in their assemblies, and the learned in the 
libraries, and the doctors in the schools, and the bishops in the churches, 
and mankind throughout the whole earth.’ ” 

I conclude this extract by accounting for St. Augustine’s inconsist- 
ency. He was a warm man: and such men, when they write much, 
and do not yet firmly stand upon the line of moderation, are apt to con- 
tradict themselves, as often as they use the armour of righteousness on 
the right hand and on the left, to oppose contrary errors. Hence it is, 
that. when St. Augustine opposed the Manichees, who were rigid bound 
willers, he strongly maintained free will with Pelagius; and when he 
opposed the Pelagians, who were rigid free willers, he strongly main- 
tained bound will and necessity with Manes. The Scripture doctrine of 
free will lies between the errer of Pelagius and that of Manes. The 
middle way between these extremes is, I hope, clearly pointed out in 
section xx. Upon the whole, he must be perverse who can cast his eyes 


upon the numerous quotations which Dr. Whitby has produced, and deny 


; 


_THIRD.] / SCRIPTURE SCALES. 215 


that the fathers held the doctrine of the Scripture Scales with respect 
to free will; and that, if they leaned to one extreme, it was rather to 
that of the Pelagians, than to that of the rigid bound willers, who clothe 
their fayourite doctrine of necessity with the specious names of invin- 
cible fate, irrevocable decrees, or absolute predestination. 

Ill. Zelotes endeavours to hide his error under the wings of the 
Church of England, as well as behind the authority of the fathers, but 
with as little success. I design to show his mistake in this respect, in 
an “ Essay on the Seventeenth Article.” In the meantime I shall ob- 
serye, that a few years before Archbishop Cranmer drew up our “ arti- 
cles of religion,” he helped the other reformers to compose a book 
called, « The Necessary Doctrine of a Christian Man,” and added to it 
a section upon free will, in which free will is defined “a power of the 
will jomed with reason, whereby, a reasonable creature, without con- 
straint, in things of reason, discerneth and willeth good and evil; but 
chooseth good by the assistance of God’s grace, and evil of itself.” 
** Wherefore,” adds Cranmer, “men be to be warned, that they do not 
impute to God their vice or their damnation, but to themselves, whick 
by free will have abused the grace and benefits of God. All men be 
also to be monished, and chiefly preachers, that in this high matter 
they, looking on both sides, [i. e. regarding both Gospel axioms] so 
attemper and moderate themselves, that neither they so preach the grace 
of God [with Zelotes] that they take away thereby free will; nor, on 
the other side, so extol free will [with Honestus] that injury be done to 
the grace of God.” 

I grant that in the book, from which this quotation* is taken, there 


* Burnet’s History of the Reformation, (second edition, part i, p. 291,) anda 
pamphlet entitled, A Dissertation on the Seventeenth Article, &c, furnish me with 
these important quotations. The last seems greatly to embarrass Mr. Hill. He 
attempts to set it aside, by urging: (1.) That in The Necessary Erudition of a 
Christian Man, “‘the doctrines of the mass, transubstantiation, &c, are particu- 
larly taught as necessary to salvation.” (2.) That ‘‘Bonner and Gardiner, as 
well as Cranmer, gave their imprimatur to it.” And, (3.) That ‘‘ even in this book 
the doctrine of predestination is not denied, but the thing its<lf clearly admitted; 
only it is laid down in such a manner as not to, &c, supersede the necessity of 
personal holiness.” To this I answer: (1.) That Cranmer expressly recanted the 
errors which Mr. Hill mentions, but instead of recanting the doctrines of free 
grace and free will, he proceeded upon that very plan, in drawing up our articles 
and liturgy, as I shall prove just now. ,(2.) That Bonner and Gardiner gave 
their imprimatur to this quotation, no more proves that it contains false doctrine, 
than their subscribing to the thirty articles some years after shows that our arti- 
cles are heretical. (3.) We thank Mr. Hill for informing the public that the book 
ealled The Erudition of a Christian Man, “clearly admits the doctrine of pre- 
destination only in such a manner as not to supersede the necessity of holiness.” 
This is just the manner in which we admit it after Cranmer in our seventeenth 
article. And we argue thus:—lIf the doctrine of free grace and free will, ad- 
mirably well balanced by Cranmer in The Erudition of a Christian Man, be a 
false doctrine, because the book contains some Papistical errorss does it not fol- 
low that the doctrine of a predestination consistent with personal holiness is a false 
doctrine, since (Mr. Hill himself being judge) such a doctrine is clearly admit- 
ted in that very book? If Mr. Hill give himself time to weigh this short an- 
swer to his pamphlet, entitled, ‘‘@ranmer vindicated from the charge of [what 
he is pleased to call] Pelagianism, by the author of Goliath slain ;’ I make no 
doubt but he will see that Goliath, (if that word means our doctrine,) far from 


being slain, is not so much as wounded. 


216 EQUAL CHECK. 


- [Part 
are some errors which Cranmer afterward renounced, as he had done 
absolute predestination before. But that he never varied from the doc- 
trine of free will laid down in the above-mentioned passage, is evident 
from the tenor of our articles of religion, which he penned, and which 
contain exactly the doctrine of the above-quoted lines. al 

Hear him and the Church of England publicly maintaining free grace 
and free will. In the tenth article on free will they assert, that “we 
have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, with- 
out the grace of God, by Christ preventing [%. e. first visiting] us, that 
we may have a good ‘will.’ Let the article be thrown into the scales, 
and the judicious reader will easily see that it directly or indirectly 
guards the very doctrine which the fathers maintained, and which we 
defend, No. 1, against Honestus, and No. 2, against Zelotes. 


“The condition of man after the 
fall of Adam is such, that he can- 
not turn and prepare himself by his 
own natural strength, &c, to faith 
and calling upon God.” : 


“ Wherefore we have no power 
to do good works, &c, without the 
grace of God by Christ preventing 
us, [2. e. visiting us first,] that we 
may have a good will, and working 
with, [not without] us, when we 
have that good will.” 


Il. 

The condition of man after the 
fall of Adam (and the promise made 
to: him) is such, that he can turn 
and prepare himself to faith and 
calling upon God, although not by 
his own natural strength. 

Wherefore we have a power to 
do good works, &c, through the 
grace of God by Christ preventing 
us, (7. é. visiting us first,) that we 
may have a good will, and working 
with, (not without us,) when we 
have that good will. 


Who does not see that there is not the least disagreement between 
these balanced propositions? And that, when Zelotes produces the tenth 
article of the Church* to prove us heretics, he acts as unreasonable a 
part as if he produced John xv, 5, to show that St. Paul was not ortho- 
dox when he wrote Phil. iv, 13. 

I. II. 

Without me [Christ] ye can do _I [Paul] can doall things through 

nothing, John xv, 5. Christ strengthening me, Phil. iv, 
13. 

This supposed “heresy” runs through our Common Prayer Book. 
Take one or two instances of it. In her catechism, she teaches every 
child whom she nurses, to “ thank God for calling him to this state of 


* The Rev. Mr. Toplady makes much ado in his Historie Proof of the Calvin- 
asm of our Church, about some dissenters whom he calls free willers, and repre- 
sénts as the first separatists from the Church of England. But they were rigid 
Pelagian free willers, and, not moderate, Bible free willers, such as Cranmer was, 
and all unprejudiced Churchmen are. This is evident from the account which Mr. 
Toplady himself gives us of their tenets, page 54. Some of which are as follows :— 
“‘ That children are not born in original sin: that lust after evil is not sin, if the 
act be not committed,” &c. Honestusdoes not run into such an extreme: much 
less we, who stand with Cranmer on the line of moderation, at an equal distance 
from Calvinian rigid bound willers, and from Pelagian rigid free willers. I hope this 
hint is sufficient to show that though the simple may be frightened by the words free 
willers and separatists, no judicious Church-of-England man will think that he 
separates from our Church when he stands to the ‘harmonizing doctrine of free 
grace and free will, which is maintained in our tenth article, and in these pages. 


THIRD. |] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 217 


Salvation,” 7. ¢. to a state of initial salvation according to the Christian 
covenant. She informs him that “his duty is to love God with all his 
‘heart, and his neighbour as himself,” &c, and then she adds :—« My 
good child, know this, that thou art not able to do these things of thy- 
‘self, nor to walk in the commandments of:God without his special grace, 
which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer,” &c. 
Now every child, whose mind is not yet tainted with Calvinism, under- 
stands the language of our holy mother according to the doctrine of 


the Scales, thus :— 
I. 

Of myself I am not able to love 
God with all my heart, &c. 

I am not able to walk in the 
commandments of God without his 
special grace. 

I am in a state of initial grace, 
and I heartily thank our heavenly 
Father that he has called me to 
this state of salvation. 


II. 
_ By God’s special grace I am able 
to love him with all my heart, &e. 

Iam able to walk in the com- 
mandments of God with his special 
grace, “ and, by God’s grace, so I 
will.” 

To have God’s special grace, « I 
must learn at all times to call for it 
by diligent prayer,” according to 
the help afforded me in my state of 
initial salvation. 


This doctrine of free grace and free will runs also through the col- 


lects of our Church. Read one of those which Zelotes admires most: 
—‘“Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit, [z. e. the special 
grace,] to think and do always such things as be rightful; that we who 
cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled 
to. live according to thy will, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Ninth 
Sunday after Trinity.) Divide. the doctrine of this collect according to 
the two Gospel axioms, and you will have the following balanced pro- 


positions :-— 
I 


We cannot do any thing that is 


good without thee, or thy Spirit. 


We cannot, but by thee, live ac- 
cording to thy will, &c. 


II. 

By thee, or thy Spirit, we can 
think and do alway such things as 
be rightful. _ 

By thee we can live according 
to thy will, &c. 


To bring more proofs that this is the doctrine of the Church of Eng- 
land, would be to offer an insult to the attention of her children. Nor 
can her sentiments on free will be more clearly expressed than they 
are in these words of the martyred prelate who drew up her articles :— 
“Tt pleaseth the high wisdom of God, that man prevented [i. e. first 
visited] by his grace, which, being offered man, he may if he will refuse 
or receive, be also a worker dy his free consent and obedience to the 
saine, &c, and by God’s grace and help shall walk in such works as be 
requisite to his [continued* and final] justification.” (Necess. Doct.) 

However, lest Zelotes should object to my quoting “ the Necessary 


* I add the words “continued and final,” to guard the unconditional freeness 
of initial justification and salvation : because this justification is previous to all 
works on our part, and because all good works are but the voluntary (Zelotes 
would say the necessary) fruits of the free gift, which is come upon all men to 
justification, Rom. v, 18. 


218 EQUAL CHECK, . [Parr 


Doctrine of a Christian Man,” I substitute for the preceding quotation, 
one to which he has indirectly subscribed, in subscribing to the thirty- 
fifth article of our Church :—* Cast we off all malice, and all evil will; 
for this spirit will never enter into an evil-willing soul [to bring there 
his special grace.] * Let us cast away all the whole lump of sin that” 
standeth about us, for he will never dwell in a body that is subdued to 
sin, &c. If we do our endeavour, we shall not need to fear. We shail 
be able to overcome all our enemies, &c. Only let us apply ourselves 
to accept the grace that is offered us. Of Almighty God we have comfort 
by his goodness; of our Saviour Christ’s mediation we may be sure ; 
and this Holy Spirit will suggest unto us that which shall be whole- 
some, and comfort us in all things.” (Homily for Rog. Week, part 
iii.) How strongly are the doctrines of free grace and free will guarded 
in these lines! And who does not see that our articles, liturgy, and 


homilies agree to maintain the Gospel marriage of free grace and free — 


will, as well as Mr. Wesley, Mr. Sellon, and myself? 


The preceding quotations and remarks will, I hope, convince the im- 


partial reader, that (some few unguarded expressions being excepted) 
Zelotes might as well screen his doctrines of narrow grace, bound will, 
and free wrath, behind the Scripture Scales, as defend them by the 
authority of the primitive Church, and the Church of England. 

IV. Should Zelotes think to answer the contents of this section by 
saying that my doctrine is “rank Pelagianism :” I reply, 1. That Vos- 
sius, who wrote the history of Pelagianism, entirely clears our doctrine 
of the charge of both Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, as appears by 
the passage which I have quoted from him, page 29: and in this cause 
the name of Vossius is legion. j 

2. Prosper, in his letter to St. Augustine, gives us this account of the 
principles of the Pelagians :—Prior est hominis obedientia quam Der 
gratia. Initium salutis ex eo est qui salvatur, non ex eo qui salvat. 
“‘Man’s obedience is beforehand with God’s grace. The beginning of 
salvation is from him that is saved, and not from him that saves.” 
These two propositions are greatly Pharisaic and detestable: they set 
aside the first Gospel axiom; and, far from recommending them, I 
every where oppose to them the weights of my first Scale. It would 
not then be more ridiculous to charge me with Crispianity, than it is to 
accuse me of Pelagianism. 

3. Bishop Davenant, in his “ Animadversions,” (pages 14 and 15,) 
calls Faustus Rhegiensis “one of the ancient semi-Pelagians,” and lays 
down his doctrine in the five following anti-Calvinistie propositions, in 
which reigns a confusion equal to that of Calvinism: (1.) Salus hominis 
non in predestinatione factoris, sed in operatione famulantis collocata 
est: “ Man’s salvation.is not placed in the election of the Creator, but in 
the actions of the worker.” This is absolutely false with respect to the 
election of distinguishing grace. What had the Ephesians wrought to 
deserve to be elected and called to share the blessings of the Gospel of 
Christ, which St. Paul. calls “so great salvation?’ Who can make 
appear that they merited so great a favour better than the Hottentots? 
(2.) Non est specialis circa credentes Dei munificentia: “ God shows no 
special grace and favour to believers.” This is absolutely false also 
with respect to all Jewish and Christian believers, to whom he gives 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 219 


that grace, and those talents, which he does not bestow upon the 
heathens who “fear God and work righteousness.” (3.) Predestinatio 
ad justitiam pertinet : “ Election belongs to justice.” This also is abso- 
lutely false, if it be understood of the ‘election, of distinguishing grace, 
whereby a man receives one, two, or five talents to trade with “ee 
he has done any thing. And it is partly false if it be understood of our 
election to receive rewards of grace and glory : for that election belongs 
to rich mercy as well as to distributive justice ; it being God’s mercy in 
Christ, which engaged him to promise penitent, obedient believers re- 
wards of grace and glory. (4.) Nisi prescientia exploraverit, predestt- 
natio nihil decernit : “ Predestination appoints nothing, unless prescience 
has seen a cause for the appointment.” ‘This is false also, if this cause 
is supposed to be always inus. What foreseen excellence made God 
predestinate the posterity of Jacob to the old covenant of peculiarity 
rather than the offspring of Esau? And what reason can Honestus 
. assign for his being called to read the Bible in a church, and not the 
Koran in a mosque? (5.) Justitia periclitabitur, si sine merito indignus 
eligitur : “ Justice will be in danger, if an undeserving person is chosen 
without any worthiness.” This is true with regard to the remunera- 
tive election of obedient believers to crowns of glory in the Church 
triumphant. Therefore, when Christ speaks of that election, he says, 
“They shall walk with him in‘white, for they are worthy :” but it is 
absolutely false with respect to the election of distinguishing grace, 
whereby the English and Scotch are chosen to the blessings of Chris- 
tianity, rather than the Turks and Cannibals. I may therefore conclude 
that, according to the accounts which Vossius, Prosper, and Bishop 
Davenant give us of Pelagianism and ancient semi-Pelagianism, our doc- 
trine is just as far from those erroneous systems, as it is from fatalism 
and Calvinism. 


SECTION TX. 


The fifth objection of Zelotes against a reconciliation with Honestus—In 
answer to it the reconciler shows that the earliest fathers held the doc- 
trine of the Scripture Scales, and that the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s Historic 
Proof of their Calvinism is quite anti-historical. 


Tue preceding section seems to embarrass Zelotes almost as much 
as my second Scale; but, soon recovering his positiveness, he endea- 
vours to set all the preceding quotations aside by the following objec- 
tion :-— 

Ozsection V. “I make no great account of the fathers, except 
those who may be called apostolic, as having lived in or immediately 
after the apostolic age. Therefore, if Barnabas, who was St. Paul’s 
fellow apostle ; if Clement, who was bishop of the uncorrupted Church 
at Rome; Clement, whom the apostle mentions not only as his ‘ fellow 
labourer,’ but also as one ‘ whose name was written in the book of life,’ 
Phil. iv, 3; if Polycarp and Ignatius, who were both disciples of the 
apostle St. John, who filled the Episcopal sees at Smyrna and Antioch, 
and who nobly laid down their lives for Christ, the one in the flames, 


220 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


and the other in the jaws of hungry lions: if these early fathers, I say, 
these undaunted martyrs are for us as well as St. Augustine; we may, 
without endangering the truth, allow you that the generality of the other 
fathers countenanced too much the doctrine of your Scales. And that 


these fathers were for us, is abundantly demonstrated in the Rey. Mr ~ 


Toplady’s Historic Proof of Calvinism.” 

Answer. It is true that when Mr. Toplady promises us “the pares 
ment of the earliest fathers,” concerning Calvinism, he says, (Historie 
Proof, page 121,) “I must repeat my ‘question, which seems to have 
given Mr. Sellon and his fraternity so much disquiet: where was not 
the doctrine of predestination before Pelagius?” But nothing can be 
more frivolous than this question ; since I myself, who oppese Calvinian 


predestination as much as Mr. Toplady does the second Scripture Scale, + 


would put the question to a Pelagian, i. e. to a rigid free willer. To do 
the subject justice, and not to mislead his unwary readers into un- 


scriptural tenets by the lure of a Scriptural word, Mr. Toplady should . 


have said, “ Where was not, before Pelagius, the Calvinian doctrine of 
the absolute predestination of some men to unavoidable, eternal life, and 
of all the rest of mankind to unavoidable, eternal death, without any 
respect to their voluntary faith and works?” For neither Mr. Sellon, 
nor any of his “fraternity,” ever denied the predestination which St. 
Paul mentions. Nay, we strongly contend for it ; see section xiv. All 
we insist upon is, that the predestination, election, and reprobation taught 
by St. Paul, by the earliest fathers, and by us, are as different from the 
predestination, &c, taught by Calvin, Zanchy, and Mr. Toplady, as the 
Scripture Scales are different from the Historic Proof. (See our Genuine 
Creed, article vii.) 

We grant also that the ingenious vicar of Broad Hembury has filled 
a section with proofs that the early fathers were sound Calvinists; but 
what weight have these proofs? Are they not founded, (1.) Upon the 
words our, we, us, and elect, which he fondly supposes to mean us who 
are Calvinistically elected in opposition to our neighbours, who, from all 
eternity, were unconditionally and absolutely reprobated from eternal 
life? (2.) Upon some phrases, where those fathers mentioned the par- 
ticular, applicatory redemption, or the particular election and calling of 
those to whom the Gospel of Christ is preached; a redemption of 
believers, an election and a calling these, for which I myself, who am 
no Calvinist, have strongly contended in my answer to Mr. Hill’s Creed 
for the Arminians? (3.) Upon some sentences, which, being torn from 
the context, seem to speak in the Calvinian strain? (4.) Uponthe harm- 
less words will, purpose, requisite, decree, &c, which are fondly sup- 
posed to demonstrate the truth of Calvinian necessity and Calvinian 
decrees? - (5.) Upon the words “brethren, the Church of saints, the 


new people, my people?” Which (such is the force of prejudice!) 


Mr. Toplady imagines must mean his Calvinistically elected brethren, 
&c, just as if people could not be brethren, form a Christian Church, 
be God’s peculiar, new, Christian people, in opposition to his old people, 
the Jews, or to those who in every nation fear God and work righteous- 
ness, or even in opposition to unconverted people, without the chimerical 
election, which drags after it the necessary damnation of all the world 
beside ! ; 


| 
| 


| 


. 


7 


THIRD. | SCRIPTURE SCALES. 221 


The truth is, that the fathers, mentioned in Zelotes’ objection, followed 
the very same plan of doctrine which is laid down in these pages, 
although they did not always balance the two Gospel axioms with the 
scrupulous caution and nicety which the vain jangling of captious, con- 
tentious, and overdoing divines obliges me to use. Mr. Toplady himself 
will hardly deny that the early fathers held the doctrine of our first 
scale. And that they held the doctrine of the second, I prove by the 
following* extracts from their excellent epistles. 

Barnabas says, in his Catholic epistle, “ Let us give heed unto the last 
days, for all the time of our life and faith shall profit us nothing, if we 
do not endure unjust things, and future temptations. Let us, being 
spiritual, be made a perfect temple to God, as much as in us lies. Let 
_ us meditate upon the fear of God, and endeavour to keep his command. 
ments, that we may rejoice in his judgments: the Lord. accepting no 
man’s person, judgeth the world; every man shall receive according to 
_ his deeds. If he be good, his goodness goes before him ; if wicked, the 
ways of his wickedness follow after him. Take heed iest, at any time, 
being called, and at ease, we should fall asleep in our sins, and the 
wicked one getting power over us, &c, exclude us from the kingdom of 
the Lord. Understand a little more; having seen the great signs and 
wonders among the people of the Jews, and that the Lord does so leave 
them ; therefore let us take heed, lest haply we be found, as it is written, 
‘Many called, few chosen.” That man shall justly perish, who hath 
knowledge of the way of truth, and yet will not refrain himself from the 
dark way.” (Pages 6, 7, 8.) *. 

I grant to Mr. Toplady, that Barnabas says, p. 28, “ Thou shalt not 
command thy maid or man servant with bitterness, especially those who 
hope in him, lest thou be found destitute of the fear of God, who is over 
both: for he came not to call men [to the blessings of Christianity] by 
their persons, [that is, according to the context, he came not to call mas- 
ters only, | but those whom his Spirit prepared :” [whether they be servants 
or masters: for God called to Christian liberty the devout soldiers and 
servants who waited on Cornelius, as well as Cornelius himself; giving 
them equally “the Spirit of adoption,” because they were equally pre- 
pared for it by “the Spirit of conviction and bondage,” which they had 
not received in yain.]_ From the last words of this quotation Mr. Top- 
lady fondly infers the Calvinism of Barnabas; whereas from the words 
which I have produced in Italics, it is evident that this apostle was as 
far from Calvinism as St. James himself: for they show that Barnabas 
thought a believer could be “ found destitute of the fear of God,” i. e. 
could so fall away into a graceless state, as to make shipwreck even of 
“the fear of God,” only by “ commanding a servant with bitterness.” 

This historic proof of Barnabas’ Calvinism is so much the more sur- 
prising, as he says, a few lines below, “ Meditate to save a soul by the 
word. And thou shalt labour for the redemption of thy sins. Give to 


* Not having the original, I extract what follows of Clement’s, from Mr. Wes- 
ley’s “‘ Christian Library,” vol. 1. The quotations from the epistles of Barnabas, 
Polycarp, and Ignatius are taken trom the translation of Thomas Elborowe, 
viear of Chiswick. It is to be met with in his book, called ‘‘ A Prospect of Pri- 
Mitive Christianity, as it was left by Christ and his Apostles ;” printed in the 
Savoy, 1668. 


222 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


every one that asketh of thee ; but know withal who is the good Recom. 
penser for the reward, &c. It is therefore an excellent thing for him 
who learns the righteous commands of the Lord, &c, to walk in them. 
For he who does them, shall be glorified in the kingdom of God; but 
he who chooseth the other things, shall perish with his works. There- 
fore there is a resurrection and a retribution. The Lord is at hand, and 
his reward. I entreat you, again and again, that ye be good lawgivers 
to yourselves, and that ye remain faithful counsellors to yourselves. Be 
ye taught of God, seeking out what the Lord requireth from you, and 
do, that ye may be saved in the day of judgment.” I see no Calvinism 
in all this ; but only the doctrine of the second Scripture Seale, which 
all Calvinists would abhor, as they do Mr. Wesley’s Minutes, if consist- 
ency belonged to their system. : 

Nor was St. Clement more averse to that scale than Barnabas: for 
alihough, in the excellent epistle which he wrote to reconvert the wrang- 
ling Corinthians, he maintains the Protestant doctrine of faith, as clearly — 
as our Church does in her eleventh article ; yet he as strongly inculeates 
the doctrine of works, as she does in the twelfth. Nay, he so closely 
connects faith and its works, that what St. Paul calls faith, he does not 
scruple to call obedience. “ By obedience, (says he) he [Abraham] went 
out of his own land.” And again: “ By faith’ and hospitality was Rahab 
saved.” Hence it is that he guards the doctrine of obedient free will 
as strongly as that of prevenient free grace. <* Let us remember (says 
he) the words of our Lord, Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Let them 
|children] learn how great power humility has with God; how much 
holy love avails with him; how the fear of him is good and great, and 
saveth all those who, with a pure mind, turn to him in holiness. Let us 
agonize to be found in the number of them that wait for him, [God, ] that 
we may partake thereof:” that is, of the things which are prepared for 
them that wait for him. 

His description of love is so highly anti-Calvinistic, that it amounts 
even to Christian perfection. ‘‘ By love were all the elect of God made 
perfect : no words can declare its perfection—all the generations, from 
Adam to this day, are passed away ; but those who were made perfect 
in love, are in the region of the just, and shall appear in glory.* ‘Love 
covereth a multitude of sins.’ Happy then are we, beloved, if we fulfil 
the commandments of God in the unity of love, that so through love our 
sins may be forgiven us. Following the commandments of God they ~~ 
sin not.” — “a 


* By comparing these two sentences, it is evident St. Clement believed and 
taught that our charity not only causes us to cover the sins of others, but in a 
secondary sense causes also God’s covering of our own sins: the first cause of 
pardon being always his free grace in Jesus Christ. Mr. Baxter exactly expresses 
St. Clement’s sentiment in his comment upon these words of St. Peter :—‘* Above 
all things have fervent charity among yourselves; for charity shall cover the mul- 
titude of sins.” ‘It is but partiality (says he) and jealousy of the cause of jus- 
tification among the Papists, which makes some excellent expositors distort the 
text, so as to exclude from its sense God’s covering of our sins; because they con- 
sider not aright, (1.) That pardon, as continued, and as renewed, has more for 
the condition of it required in us, than the first pardon and begun justification 
has. The first act of sound faith serveth for the beginning, but the continuance 
of it [of sound faith] with its necessary fruits [love, &c,] is necessary to the con- 
tinuance of pardon. (2.) That the faith which is required to justification and 


THIRD. |] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 223 


So far was he from Calvinian narrowness and reprobation, that when 
he exnorts the Corinthians to repentance, he does it in these words :— 
«« Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ, and see how precious it is 
before God, which, being shed for our salvation, brought the grace of 
repentance to all the world. Let us look diligently to all ages, and 
learn that our Lord has always given place for repentance to all who 
desired to turn to him. Noah preached repentance, and they who 
hearkened to him were saved. Jonah denounced destruction upon the 
Nineyites ; yet they, repenting of their sins, appeased God by their 
prayers, and received salvation, although they were strangers to the 
covenant of God. Wherefore let us, &c, turn ourselves to bis mercy.” 

In all this I see no more Calvinism than I do in Mr. Wesley’s Mi- 
nutes. However, Mr. Toplady’s “ Historic Proof” is gone forth; and 
it is now demonstrated that St. Clement was an orthodox and a sound 
Calvinist ; while the author of the Minutes is a heretic, and almost every 
thing that is bad! O Solifidianism! is thy influence over those who 
drink-of thy enchanting cup so great that they can prove, believe, and 
make people believe almost any thing ? 

By the same frivolous arguments Mr. Toplady attempts to evince 
the Calvinism of Polycarp, whose epistle, in some places, is rather too 
much anti-Calvinistical. Reader,- judge for thyself, and say which of 
Calvin’s peculiarities breathe through the following passages of his 
Epistle to the Philippians: page 2, “ Who [Christ] shall come to judge 
the quick and the dead, and whose blood God will strictly require at 
the hands of those who do not believe on him. But he, who raised him 
from the dead, will raise us up also, if we do his will, and walk in his 
commandments, dc, remembering what the Lord said, teaching in this 
wise, ‘ Judge not, that ye be net judged: forgive, and it shall be for- 
given you: be merciful, that ye may obtain mercy: in what measure 
ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,’ &c. These things, bre- 
thren, I write unto you concerning righteousness.” 

Polycarp, far from recommending the Calvinian imputation of Christ’s 
righteousness, openly sides with those who are reproached as perfec- 
tionists in our days; for in the next page he says, “If any man is pos- 
sessed of these, [faith, followed by hope, and led on by love,] he hath 
fulfilled the command of righteousness. He who is possessed of love, 
is free from all sin. Let us arm ourselves with the armour of right- 
eousness, and teach ourselves in the first place to walk in the com- 
mandments of the Lord:” “from whom,” says he, in the next page, 
“if we please him in this world, we shall receive a [or the] future re- 
ward. For he has engaged for us, to raise us from the dead: and if 


pardon, is giving up ourselves to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the 
baptismal covenant; thaf. is, our Christianity, which is not put in opposition to 
that love or repentance, which is still implied as part of the same covenant con 
sent, or as its necessary fruit ; but to the works of the law of Moses, or of works, 
or to any works that are set in competition with Christ and free grace. If pre- 
judice hindered not men, the reading of the angel’s words to Cornelius, and of 
Christ’s, (‘forgive and ye shall be forgiven,’) and the parable of the pardoned 
debtor, cast into prison for not pardoning his fellow servant, with James ii, and 
Matt. xxv, would end all this controversy.” O Clement! O Baxter! what have 
ye said? Are ye not as heterodox as the author of the Minutes and their Vin. 
dicator ? 


224 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


we have our conversation worthy of him, we shall also reign with him, 
as we believe.” Nor is he ashamed to urge the practice of good works 
from a motive which Zelotes would call downright popery. For afier 
observing that “ Paul, and the rest of the apostles, have not run in vain, 
but in faith and righteousness; and having obtained the place due unto 
them, are now with the Lord,” &c, he adds: “ When ye can do good, - 
do not defer it, for alms delivereth from death.” If Mr. Wesley said this, — 
he would be a heresiarch. Polycarp says it; but, no matter, Poly- 
carp is a famous martyr; and therefore he must be a sound Calvinist. 

And so must Ignatius, who, from the same motive, is pressed into the 
service of the Calvinian doctrines of grace. ‘To show that Mr. Top- 
lady is mistaken, when he asserts that Ignatius was Calvinistically ortho- 
dox, I need only prove that Ignatius enforced the second Gospel axiom 
as well as the first. And that he did so, is evident from the following 
quotations. He writes to the Smyrneans :—“ Let all things abound 
among you in grace, for ye are worthy. Ye have every way re- 
freshed me, and Jesus Christ will refresh you. Ye have loved me, &e. 
God will requite you ; and if ye patiently endure all things for his sake, 
ye shall enjoy him. Being perfect yourselves, mind the things which 
are perfect. For if ye have but a will to do good, God is ready to as- 
sist you.” He writes to Polycarp:—“The more the labour is, the 
more the gain. It is necessary for us patiently to endure all things for 
God, that he may patiently bear with us. Ministers of God, do things 
pleasing to him, &c, whose soldiers ye are, from whom ye expect your 
salary. Let none among you be found a deserter of his colours. Let 
your baptism arm you; let faith be your helmet, love your spear, pa- 
tience your whole armour, and your works your gage [ your depositum| 
that you may receive a reward worthy of you. When ye shall have 
despatched this business, the work shall be ascribed to God and to 
you,” according to the doctrine of free grace and free will. And, at 
the end of his letter, he exhorts the presbyters and Polycarp to write 
edifying letters to the neighbouring Churches, “ that ye may all be glo- 
rified by an eternal work, as thou art worthy.” 

To the Ephesians, whom he calls “ elect by real sufferings,” as well 
as “ through the will of God,” he writes :—“ Keeping the melody of 
God, which is unity, ye shall with one voice glorify the Father by Jesus 
Christ, that he may also hear you, and acknowledge you by what you 
do, to be the members of his Son. So that it is profitable for you to 
continue in immaculate unity, that ye may always be partakers of God. 
Keep yourselves in all purity and temperance, both in flesh and spirit, 
through Jesus Christ.” 

To the Magnesians he says: “ All works have some end; two [ends 
are proposed, DEATH and LirE; and every man shall go to his proper 
place,” through his works of faith or unbelief. 

To the Trallians indeed he writes:—“ Flee therefore eyil plants 
[Atheists and infidels] which bring forth deadly fruit, which if a man 
tastes of, he dies presently. For these are not the plantation of the 
Father ; if they were, they would appear branches of his cross, and 
their fruit would be incorruptible,” or rather, not rotten, not unsound. 
Mr. Toplady depends much on the latter part of this quotation: but all 
we see in it is, that Ignatius believed none are actually plants of right- 


THIRD. | SCRIPTURE SCALES. 225 


eousness but they who actually appear such, by actually bearing good 
fruit, which he calls apSapros, in opposition to rotten fruit: for if the 
word Séipw means “to spoil, to corrupt, to rot,” aSaprog means as well 
“not rotten” as “ incorruptible.” And that it means so here is evident 
from the motive urged by Ignatius in the context, to make the 'Trallian 
believers flee from those evil plants, these Atheistical apostates: “If a 
man,” that is, if any one of you, believers, (for unbelievers being dead 
already, have no spiritual life to lose,) “if a man tastes their deadly fruit, 
he dies presently ;” so far is he from being sure to recover, and sing 
louder in heaven if he apostatizes, and feasts for months upon their 
deadly fruit! This important clause renders the quotation altogether 
anti-Calvinistical, especially if we compare it toa similar caution which 
this very father gives to the Ephesians :—“ Let no one among you be 
found an herb of the devil; keep yourselves in all purity,” &c. That is, 
let none of you apostatize by tasting the deadly fruit of these evil plants, 
which have apostatized. Both quotations evidently allude to these 
words of Jeremiah ii, 21, “I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a 
right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a 
strange vine!” Both are strongly anti-Calvinistical ;,and yet the former | 
is produced by Mr. Toplady as a proof of Calvinism! Need I say any 
more to make Zelotes himself cry out, Logica Genevensis ? 

From the whole, I hope that unprejudiced readers will subscribe to 
the following remarks: (1.) Barnabas, Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius 
undoubtedly held the first Gospel axiom, or the godly, Scriptural doc- 
trine of free grace; so far we agree with Mr. Toplady. But to prove _ 
them fathers after his own heart, this gentleman should have proved 
that at least by necessary consequence they rejected the second Gospel 
axiom, which necessarily includes our doctrines of moderate free will, 
of the works of penitential faith, and of the reward of eternal salvation 
annexed to the unnecessitated, voluntary obedience of faith. (2.) If 
Mr. Toplady dismembered the “ Equal Check,” and broke the “ Scrip- 
ture Scales ;” taking what I advance against the proper merit of works, 
and in defence of free grace ; producing my arguments for the covenants 
of peculiarity, and for the election of distinguishing grace ; and carefully 
concealing all that I have written in favour of assisted free will, and 
evangelical morality: if Mr. Toplady, I say, followed this method, in 
those two pieces only, he would find a great many more proofs of Cal- 
vinism, i..e. of mangled, immoral, Antinomian Christianity, than he has 
found in all the writings of the earliest fathers, to whom he so confidently 
appeals. (3.) We must then still go down so low as the fourth or fifth 
century, before we can find Calvin the First, I mean nearep St. Au- 
gustine. And how inconsistent a Calvinist coon St. Augustine was, 
has already been proved. I therefore flatter myself, that Mr. Toplady’s 
anti-historic proof of the Calvinism of the primitive Church will no 
longer keep Zelotes from a Scriptural reconciliation with Honestus. 
But I see that the time is not yet come; for he turns over two octavo 
volumes, and prepares another weighty objection, which the reader will 
find in the following section. 


Vox. II. 15 


226 EQUAL CHECK. [Parr 
> 


SECTION X. 


Zelotes’ sixth objection to a reconciliation with Honestus—The reconciler 
answers it by showing, (1.) That the evangelical marriage of free 
grace and free will reflects no dishonour upon God's sovereignty. (2.) 
That Mr. Toplady’s grand argument against that marriage ; is incon- 
clusive. (3.) That Mr. Whitefield’s “ inextricable dilemma,” in favour 
of Calvinian election and reprobation, is a mere sophism. And, (4.) 
That Zelotes’ jumble of free wrath, and unevangelical Sree grace, pours 
real contempt upon all the Divine perfections, sovereignty itself not 
excepted. 


» Ozsection VI. “If you are not a Pelagian, are you not a secret 
Atheist? Do you not indirectly represent Jehovah as not God? You 
want me to meet Honestus half way: but if I meet him where you are, 
shall not I meet him on the brink of a horrible precipice? Are you not 
an opposer of God’s sovereignty, which shines as gloriously among his 
other perfections, as the moon does among the stars? Is not a God with- 
out sovereignty as contemptible as a king without a kingdom? And can 
you reconcile your arrogant doctrine of free will, with the supreme, ab- 
solute, irresistible power, by which God ¢ works all things after the coun- 
sel of his own will?’ Hear the Calvin of the day—the champion of 
the doctrines of grace :— 

“For this [Atheism] also Arminianism has paved the way, by 
despoiling the Divine Being, among other attributes of his unlimited 
supremacy, of his infinite knowledge, of his infallible wisdom, of his in- 
vincible power, of his absolute independency, of his eternal immutability. 
Not to observe that the exempting of some things and events from the 
providence of God, by referring them to free will, &c, is another of 
those black lanes, which lead, in a direct line, from Arminianism to 
Atheism. Neither is it at all surprising that any who represent men as 
gods (by supposing man to possess the Divine attribute of independent 
self determination) should, when their hand is in it, represent God himself 
with the imperfections of a man, by putting limitations to his sovereignty, 
by supposing his knowledge to be shackled with circumscription, and 
darkened with uncertainty ; by connecting their ideas of his wisdom and 
power with the possibility of disconcertment and disappointment, embar- 
rassment and defeat; by transferring his independency to themselves, 
in order to support their favourite doctrine, which affirms that the 
Divine will and conduct are dependent on the will and conduct of men ; 
by blotting out his immutability, that they may clear the way for condi- 
tional, variable, vanquishable, and amissible grace ; and by narrowing his 
providence, to keep the idol of free will upon its legs, and to save human 
reason from the humiliation of acknowledging her inability to account 
for many of the Divine disposals, &c. Who sees not the Atheistical 
tendency of all this? Let Arminianism try to exculpate herself from the 
heavy, but unexaggerated indictment, which if she cannot effect, it will 
be doing her no injustice to term her Atheism in masquerade.’ ” (Rev. 
Mr. Toplady’s Historic Proof, p. 728, &c.) 

Answer. If this terrible objection had the least degree of solidity, 
I would instantly burn the Checks and the Scripture Scales; for I trust 


THIRD.| SCRIPTURE SCALES. 227 


> 


that the glory of God is ten thousand times dearer to me than the 
success of my little publications. But I cannot take bare assertions, 
groundless insinuations, and bombastic charges for solid proofs. In a 
mock sea fight, cannons may dreadfully roar, but no masts are shot 
away, no ship is sent to the bottom. And that, in this polemical broad- 
side, the weight of the ball (if there be any) does not answer to 
the noise of the explosion, will appear, I hope, by the following an- 
swers :— 

I. (1.) This objection is entirely levelled at the second Scripture 
Scale, which is made of so great a variety of plain scriptures, that, to 
attempt to set it aside as leading to Atheism, is to endeavour setting 
aside one half of the doctrinal part of the Bible as being Atheistical. And 
if so considerable a part of the Bible be Atheistical, the whole is undoubt- 
edly a forgery. Thus Zelotes, rather than not to cut down what he is 
pleased to call Arminianism, fells one half of the trees that grow in the 
fruitful garden of revealed truth, under pretence that they are produc- 
tive of Atheism: and, by that means, he gives infidels a fair opportunity 
of cutting down all the rest. 

(2.) Zelotes is greatly mistaken if he thinks that the free agency we 
plead for, absolutely crosses the designs of “Him who works all after 
the counsel of his own will :” for if part of this counsel be, that man shall 
be a free agent, that life and death, heaven and hell, shall be “set be- 
fore him ;” and that he shall eternally have either the one or the other, 
according to his own choice: if this be the case, I say, God’s wisdom 
cannot be disappoited, nor his sovereign power baffled, be man’s choice 
whatever it may: because God designed to manifest his sovereign wis- 
dom and power in the wonderful creation, wise government, and right- 
eous judgment of free agents; and not in overpowering their will, .or 
in destroying their free agency ; much less in subverting his awful tri- 
bunal, and in obscuring all his perfections to place one of them (sove- 
reignty) in a more glaring light.” 

(3.) I grant that the doctrine of free will evangelically assisted by 
free grace, (not Calvinistically overpowered by forcible grace or wrath,) 
I grant, I say, that this doctrine can never be reconciled with the doc- 
trme of an unscriptural, tyrannical sovereignty, which Zelotes rashly 
attributes to God, under pretence of doing him honour. But that it is 
perfectly consistent with the awful, and yet amiable views which the 
Scriptures give us of God’s real sovereignty, is, 1 hope, abundantly 
proved in the preceding pages. To the arguments which they con- 
tain, I add the following illustration :— 

If a king, wisely to try, and justly to reward the honesty of his sub- 
jects, made a statute, to insure particular rewards to thief catchers, 
and particular punishments to thieves; would it be any disparagement 
to hi3 wisdom, power, supremacy, and sovereignty, if he did not neces- 
sitate, nor absolutely oblige some of*his subjects to rob, and others to 
catch them in the robbery; lest he should not order the former for in- 
fallible execution, and appoint to the latter a gratuitous reward? Would 
not our gracious sovereign be injyred by the bare supposition that he is 
capable of displaying his supreme authority by such a pitiful method? 
And shall we suppose that the King of kings—the Judge of all the 
earth, maintains his righteous sovereignty by a similar conduct? 


2298 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


(4.) We perpetually assert tnat God is the only first cause of all 
good, both natural and moral; and thus we ascribe to him a sovereignty 
worthy of the Parent of good. If we do not directly, with the Mani- 
chees, or indirectly, with the Calvinists, represent God as the first cause 
of evil, it is merely because we dare not attribute to him a diabolical 
supremacy. And we fear that Zelotes will have no more thanks for 
giving God the glory of predestinating the reprobate necessarily to con- 
tinue in sin, and be damned, than | should have, were I to give our 
Lord the shameful glory of seducing Eve in the shape of a lying ser- 
pent, lest he should not have the glory of being, and doing all in all. 

(5.) We apprehend that the doctrine of the Scales (i. e. the doctrine 
of free will, evangelically subordinate to free grace or to just wrath) 
perfectly secures the honour of God’s greatness, supremacy, and power 
without dishonouring his goodness, justice, and veracity. It seems to 
us unscriptural and unreasonable to suppose that God should eclipse 
these, his morat perfections, (by which he chiefly proposes himself to 
us for our imitation,) in order to set off those, his NaruraL perfections. 
A grim tyrant, a Nebuchadnezzar, is praised for his greatness, sove- 
reignty, and power; but a Titus, a prince who deserves to be called 
“the darling of mankind,” is extolled for his goodness, justice, and. 
veracity. And who but Satan, or his subjects, would so overvalue the 
praise given to a Nebuchadnezzar, as to slight the praise bestowed upon 
a Titus? Was not. Titus as great a potentate as Nebuchadnezzar and 
Darius, though he did not, like them, make tyrannical decrees to assert 
his powers, and then execute them with wanton cruelty, or with absurd 
mourning ; lest he should lose the praise of his sovereignty and immu- 
tability, before a multitude of mistaken decretists ? 

Il. Having, I hope, broken the heart of Zelotes’ objection by the 
preceding arguments, it will not be difficult to take in pieces his boasted 
quotation from Mr, 'Toplady’s “ Historic Proof ;” and to point out the 
flaw of every part. 

(1.) “ Arminianism paves the way for Atheism by despoiling the Di- 
vine Being of his wnlimzted supremacy.” No: it only teaches us that 
it is absurd to make God’s supremacy bear an undue proportion to his 
other perfections. Do we despoil the kmg of his manly shape, because 
we deny his having the head of a giant, and the body of a dwarf? (2.) 
“Of his infallible wisdom.” No: God wisely made free agents, that 
he might wisely judge them according to their works ; and it is one of 
our objections to the modern doctrines of grace, that they despoil God 
of his “ wisdom” in both these respects. (3.) “ Of his invincible power.” 
No: God does whatever pleases him, in heaven, earth, and hell. But 
reason and Scripture testify that he does not choose to set his invincible 
power against his unerring wisdom, by overpowering with saving grace, 
or damning wrath, the men whom he is going judicially to reward or 
punish. (4.) “Of his absolute independency.” Absurd! when we say 
that the promised reward, which a general bestows upon a soldier for 
his gallant behaviour in the field, depends in some measure upon the 
soldier’s gallant behaviour, do we despoil the general of his independ- 


ency with respect to the scldier? Must the general, to show himself 


independent, necessitate some of his soldiers to fight, that he may fool- 
ishly promote them; and others to desert, that he may blow their brains 


THIRD. |] SCRIPTURE SCALES. : 229 
> 


out with Calvinian independence? (5.) “ Of his eternal immutability.” 
No: when we assert that God justifies men according to their faith, 
and rewards them according to their good works; or when we say that 
he condemns them according to their unbelief, and punishes them ac- 
cording to their bad works ; do we intimate that he betrays the least 
degree of mutability? On the contrary, do we not hereby represent 
him as faithfully executing his eternal, immutable decree of judging and 
treating men according to their works of faith, or of unbelief? (See 
“the Genuine Creed,” article eighth.) 

Mr. Toplady goes on: (6.) “The exempting of some things and 
events from the providence of God, by referring them to free will, &c, 
is another of those black lanes, which lead, in a direct line, from Armi- 
nianism to Atheism.” ‘This is a mistake all over. By the doctrine of 
moderate free will we exempt no event or thing from the providence of 
God : for we maintain, that as God’s power made free will, so his pro- 
vidence rules or overrules it in all things. Only we do not believe that 
ruling or overruling implies “necessitating, overpowering,” or “ trick- 
ing,” when judgments, punishments, and rewards are to follow. Our 
doctrine, therefore, is a lightsome walk, which leads to the right know- 
ledge of God, and not one of those “black lanes which leads in a direct 
line” from Calvinian election to “Mr. Fulsome’s” presumption; and 
from Calvinian reprobation, to Francis Spira’s despair. 

(7.) Arminianism “represents men as gods, by supposing man to 
possess the Divine attribute of independent self determination.” Our 
doctrines of grace suppose no such thing: on the contrary, we assert 
that obedient free will is always dependent upon God’s free grace ; and 
disobedient free will upon God’s just wrath: this charge of Mr. Top- 
lady is therefore absolutely groundless. (8.) Arminianism “ represents 
God himself with the imperfections of a man, by putting limitations to 
his sovereignty.” This is only a repetition of what is absurdly said, 
No. 1, about God’s “unlimited supremacy.” (9.) It “supposes his 
knowledge to be shackled with circumscription, and darkened with un- 
certainty.” It supposes no such thing: on the contrary, one of our 
great objections to Calvinism is, that it so shackles God’s infinite know- 
ledge as to despoil him of the knowledge of future contingencies, or of 
those events which depend upon man’s unnecessitated choice : absurdly 
supposing that God knows what he absolutely decrees, and no more. 
“If events were undecreed,” says Mr. Toplady, in his Hist. Proof, p. 
192, “they would be unforeknown; if unforeknown, they could not be 
infallibly predicted. How came God to foreknow man’s fall,” says ~ 
Calvin, [nist quia sic ordinarat,| “but because he had appointed it ?” 
Thus Calvin and Mr. Toplady, in one sense, allow less foreknowledge 
to God, than to a stable boy ; for without decreeing any thing about the 
matter, a postilion knows that if the horse he curries gets into his mas- 
ter’s garden, some of the beds will be trampled ; and that if a thief has 
an opportunity of taking a guinea without being seen, he will take it. 
(See pages 283, 287.) 

(10.) The Arminians “connect their ideas of God’s wisdom and 
power with the possibility of disconcertment and disappointment, em- 
barrassment and defeat.” No such thing: we maintain that God, in 
his infinite wisdom and power, has made free agents, in order to display 


230 EQUAL CHECK. : [parr 


his goodness by rewarding them, if they believe and obey; or his justice 
by punishing them, if they prove faithless and disobedient. _Whichso- 
ever of the two therefore comes to pass, God is no more “ disconcerted, 
disappointed, embarrassed,” &c, than a lawgiver and judge, who acquits 
or condemns criminals according to his own law, and to their own works 
(11.) What Mr. Toplady says in the next lines about the Arminiar 
“transferring independency to themselves in order to support thesr 
favourite doctrine, which affirms that the Divine will and conduct are 
dependent on the will and conduct of men;” and what he adds about 
their “ blotting out God’s immutability, and narrowing his providence, 
to keep the idol of free will upon its iegs,” is a mere repetition of what 
is answered in No. 4, 5,6, 7. This elegant tautology of Mr. Toplady 
may make some of his admirers wonder at the surprising variety of his 
arguments ; but attentive readers can see through the rhetorical veil. 
What that gentleman says of “conditional; variable, vanquishable, 
and amissible grace,” is verbal dust, raised to obscure the glory of the 
second Gospel axiom, to hide one of the Scripture Scales, and to substi- 
tute overbearing, necessitating grace, and free, unprovoked wrath, for 
the genuine grace and just wrath mentioned in the Gospel. Let us 
however dwell a moment upon each of these epithets: (1.) “ Con- 
ditional grace :” we assert (according to the first axiom) that the grace 
of initial salvation is unconditional ; and (according to the second axiom) 
we maintain that the grace of eternal salvation is conditional, excepting 
the case of complete idiots, and of all who die in their infancy. If Mr. 
Toplady can disprove either part of this doctrine, or, which is all one, 
if he can overthrow the second Gospel axiom, and break our left Scale, 
let him do it. (2.) “ Variable grace :” we assert that grace, as it is 
inherent in God, is invariable. But we maintain that the displays of it 
toward mankind are various; ; asserting that those displays of it which 
God grants in a way of reward to them that faithfully use what they 
have, and properly ask for more, may and do vary according to the 
variations of faithful or unfaithful free will; our Lord himself having 
declared that “to him that hath to purpose, more shall be given;” and 
that “from him that hath not to purpose, even what he hath shall be 
taken away.” (3.) “‘ Vanquishable grace :” to call God’s grace yan- 
quishable is absurd ; because Christ does not fight men with grace, any 
more than a physician fights the sick with remedies. If a patient will 
not take his medicines, or will not take them properly, or will take poison 
also, the medicines are not vanquished, but despised, or improperly taken. 
~ This does not show the weakness of the medicines, but the perverseness 
of the patient. Nor does it prove that the dying man is stronger than 
his healthy physician; but only that the physician will not drench him 
as a farrier does a brute. If Mr. Toplady asserts the contrary, I refer 
him to page 67 of this volume. And, pointing at Christ’s tribunal, I 
ask, Could the Judge of all the earth wisely and equitably sentence men 
to eternal life, or to eternal death, if he first drenched them with the cup 
of finished salvation, or finished damnation? (4.) “ Amissible grace :” 
why cannot evangelical grace be lost as well as the celestial and para- 
disiacal grace which was bestowed upon angels and man before the fall? 
Is a diamond less precious for being amissible? Is it any disgrace to 
the sun that thousands of his beams are lost upon the drones who sleep 


THIRD. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 231 


away his morning light? or that they are abused by all the wicked who 
dare to sin in open day? If Divine grace is both forcible and ina. 
missible, what signify the apostolic cautions of “not receiving it in 
vain,” and of not “doing despite to the Spirit of grace?’ In a word, 
what signifies our second Gospel Scale, with all the scriptures that fill 
it up? 

To conclude: if those scriptures clearly demonstrate the doctrine of 
a free will, always subordinate either to free grace or to just wrath ; 
when Mr. Toplady calls that free will an “idol,” does he not inad- 
vertently charge God with being an idol maker, and Hs ee the sacred 
writers as supporters of the idol which God has made? And when that 
gentleman says that we “keep the idol of free will upon its legs, to save 
human reason from the humiliation of acknowledging her inability to 
account for many of the Divine disposals ;” does he not impose bound 
will and Calvinian reprobation upon us, just as the bishop of Rome im- 
poses transubstantiation upon his tame underlings: that is, under pretence 
that we must humbly submit our reason to the Divine declarations, 
decrees, or disposals? Just as if there were no difference betweer 
popish declarations, or Calvinian decrees, and “ Divine disposals!” 
Just as if the bare fear of regarding reason were sufficient to drive us 
from all the rational scriptures which fill our second Scale, into all the 
absurdities and horrors of free wrath and finished damnation ! 

And now say, candid reader, if I may not justly apply to the Calvinian 
doctrines of grace a part of what Mr. Toplady rashly says of “ Ar- 
minianism?”’ “Let Calvinism exculpate hérself from the heavy, but 
unexaggerated indictment, which, if she cannot effect, it will be doing 
her no injustice to term her” (I shall not say “ Atheism in masquerade,” 
spe an irrational and unscriptural system of doctrine. 

II. «Not so, (replies Zelotes :) if you have answered Mr. Toplady’s 
argument, you cannot set aside Mr. Whitefield’s dilemma in his letter to 
Mr. Wesley. To me, at least, that dilemma appears absolutely un- 
answerable. It runs thus :—‘ Surely Mr. Wesley will own God’s justice 
in imputing Adam’s sin to his posterity: and also, that after Adam fell, 
and his posterity in him, God might justly have “passed them all by,” 
without sending his own Son to be a Saviour for any one. Unless you 
do heartily agree in both these points, you do not believe original sin 
aright. If you do own them, you must acknowledge the doctrine of 
election and reprobation to be highly just and reasonable. For if God 
might justly impute Adam’s sin to all, and afterward have passed by all, 
then he might justly pass by some. Turn to the right hand or to the” 
left, you are reduced to an inextricable dilemma.’” (See Mr. White- 
field’s Works, vol. iv, p. 67.) 

Answer. We own God’s justice in imputing Adam’s sin seminally 
to his posterity, because his posterity sinned seminally in him, and was 
in him seminally corrupted. And we grant that, in the loins of Adam, 
we seminally deserved all that Adam himself personally deserved. So 
far we agree with Mr. Whitefield; maintaining, as he does, that, by our 
fallen nature in Adam, we are all children of wrath; and that, as soon 
as our first parents had sinned, God might justly have sent them, and us 
in their loins, into the pit of destruction; much more “ might he justly 
have passed us all by, without sending his own Son to be a Saviour for 


232 EQUAL CHECK [Part 


any one.” Therefore Mr, Whitefield has no reason to suspect that we 
deny the Scripture doctrine of original sin. 

This being premised, we may easily see that the great flaw of the 
«inextricable dilemma” consists in confounding our seminal state with 
our personal state: and in concluding that what would have been just, 
when we were in our seminal state in the loins of Adam, must also be 
just in our personal state, now we are out of his loins. As this is the 
main spring of Mr. Whitefield’s mistake, it is proper to point it out a 
little more clearly. Let the following propositions form the pointer :— 

(1.) “ The wages of sin is death,” yea, eternal death or damnation. 
(2.) The wages of sin personally and consciously committed, is damna- 
tion personally and consciously suffered. (3.) The wages of sin semi- 
nally and unknowingly committed is damnation, seminally and unknow- 
ingly suffered. (4.) When Adam had personally and consciously 
sinned; God would have been just if he had inflicted upon him the per- 
sonal and conscious punishment which we call damnation. (5.) When 
we had seminally and unknowingly sinned in Adam, God would have 
been just if he had inflicted a seminal and unfelt damnation upon us for 
it; for then our punishment would have borne just proportion to our 
offence. We should have been punished as we had sinned, that is, 
seminally, and without the least consciousness of pain or of loss. 

But is it not contrary to all equity to punish a sin seminally and 
unknowingly committed with an eternal punishment, personally and 
knowingly endured? For what is Calvinian reprobation but a dreadful 
decree that a majority of the children of men shall be personally bound 
over to conscious, necessary, and eternal sin; which sin shall draw 
after it conscious, necessary, and eternal damnation? Hence it appears 
that Calvinian predestination to death is horrible in its end, which is 
personal, necessary, and eternal torments consciously endured: but 
much more horrible in the means which it appoints to secure that end, 
namely, personal, remediless sin; sin necessarily, unavoidably, and 
eternally committed; and all this merely for a sin seminally, unknow- 
ingly, and unconsciously committed: and (what is still more horrible) 
for a sin which God himself had absolutely predestinated, if the doctrine 
of Calvinian predestination, or of the absolute* necessity of events be 
Scriptural. ‘It is true,” Zelotes says, “that although reprobates are 
absolutely reprobated merely for the sin of Adam, yet they are damned 
merely for their own.” But this evasion only makes a bad matter 


worse ; for it intimates that free wrath so flamed against their unformed — 


persons, as to determine that they should absolutely be formed, not only 
to be necessarily and eternally miserable, but also to be necessarily and 
eternally guilty; which is pourmg as much contempt upon Divine 
goodness, as I should pour upon Phinehas’ character, if I asserted that 
he contrived, and absolutely secured the filthy crime of Zimri and Cosbi, 
that, by this means, he might have a fair opportunity of infallibly running 
them both through the body. 

An illustration may help the reader to understand how hard the ground 


* Wickliff used to say, ‘‘ All things that happen do come absolutely of neces- 
sity.” (Historic Proof, page 191.) And Mr. Toplady, after taking care to dis- 
tinguish, and set off the words will, absolutely, and necessity, says, in the next 
page, ‘I ugree with him as to the necessity of events.” 


THIRD.| SCRIPTURE SCALES. 233 


of Mr. Whitefield’s dilemma bears upon God’s equity. I have committed 
a horrible murder: Iam condemned to be burnt alive for it ; my sentence 
is just; having personally and consciously sinned without necessity, I 
deserve to be personally and consciously tormented. The judge may 
then, without cruelty, condemn every part of me to the flames; and the 
unbegotten posterity in my loins may justly burn with me, and in me: 
for with me and in me it has sinned as a part of myself. Nor is it a 
great misfortune for my posterity to be thus punished; because it has 
as little knowledge and feeling of my punishment, as of my crime. But 
_suppose the judge, after reprieving me, divided and multiplied me into 
‘ten thousand parts; suppose again that each of these parts necessarily 
grew up into a man or a woman; would it be reasonable in him to say 
to seven or eight hundred of these men and women, “ You were all 
seminally guilty of the murder committed by the man whom I reprieved ; 
and from whose lois I have extracted you; and therefore my mercy 
passes you by, and my Justice absolutely reprobates your Benen | 
force you into remediless circumstances, in which you will al! necessa- 
rily commit murder; and then [ shall have as fair an opportunity of 
unavoidably burning you for your own unavoidable murders, as I have 
had of absolutely reprobating you for the murder committed by the man 
from whom your wretched existence is derived.” Who does not see 
the injustice and cruelty of such a speech? Who, but Zelotes, would 
not blush to call it a gracious speech, or a “ doctrine of grace?” But if 
the persons, whom I suppose extracted from me, are reprieved as well as 
myself; if we are put all together in remediable circumstances, where sin 
indeed abounds, but where grace abounds much more, supposing we are 
not unnecessarily, voluntarily, and obstinately wanting to ourselves ; who 
does not see that, upon the personal commission of avoidable, voluntary 
murder, (and much more upon the personal refusal of a pardon sincerely 
offered upon reasonable conditions,) my posterity may be condemned to 
the flames as justly as myself? 

If this illustration exactly represents the deplorable case of Calvinian 
reprobates, who, barely for a sin which they seminally committed, are 
supposed to be personally bound over first to unavoidable perseverance 
in sin, and next to unavoidable and eternal damnation ; will not all my 
_ unprejudiced readers wonder to hear Mr. Whitefield assert that the Cal- 
vinian doctrine of reprobation is “highly just and reasonable ?” 

«“ What !” replies that good mistaken man, “ will not Mr. Wesley own 
that God might justly have passed all Adam’s posterity by, without send- 
ing his own Son to be a Saviour for any man?” Answer. God forbid 
we should ever imagine that God was bound to send his Son to die for 
any man! No: God was no more bound to redeem any man, than he 
was bound to create the first man; redemption as well as creation 
entirely flowing from rich, and every way undeserved grace. 

“ Then you give up the point,” says Zelotes ; “ for there is no medium 
between God’s refusing to send his Son to redeem a part of Adam’s 
posterity, and his passing a sentence of Calvinian reprobation upon 
them. Now if he could justly,refuse to send his Son to save all, he 
could justly refuse to send him to save some, and therefore he could 
justly reprobate some, i. e. predestinate them to a remediless state of 
sin, and of consequence to unavoidable damnation.” 


234 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


This sophistical argument probably misled Mr. Whitefield. But the 
«“ medium” which he could not see, the medium which spoils his “inex- 
tricable dilemma,” the door at which we readily go out of the prison 


where Logica Genevensis fancies she has confined us, may easily be | 


pointed out, thus:—If God had not entertained gracious thoughts 
of peace, mercy, and redemption toward all mankind; if he had 
designed absolutely and unconditionally to glorify nothing but his vindie- 
tive justice upon a number of them, for having seminally sinned in Adam, 
he might undoubtedly have passed them by; yea, he might have severely 
punished them. But, as | have observed, in this case he would have 
punished them equitably, that is, seminally: he would have crushed 
guilty Adam, and with him his Cainish, reprobated seed ; contriving the 
birth of Abel, Seth, and others, in such a manner as to bring no man 
into personal existence, but such as had a personal share in his redeem- 
ing mercy. And this is the very plan, which, according to our doctrines 


of grace, and according to the Scriptures, God graciously laid down in — 


eternity, and faithfully executed when “the Lamb slain from the founda- 
tion of the world tasted death for every man—gave himself a ransom for 
al]”—and became an evangelical (not an Antinomian) “ propitiation for 
the sins of the whole world.” 

A third flaw in Mr. Whitefield’s dilemma is the supposition that Cal- 
vinian reprobation is only a harmless preterition: but a passing by, m 
some cases, is horrible cruelty. Thus if a mother Calvinistically passes 
by her suckling child for a week, she actually starves and destroys him. 
This is not all: Calvinian reprobation is a downright appointment to 
eternal death. “The [Calvinian] predestination 6f some to life,” &c, 
says Mr. Toplady, “cannot be maintained without admitting the [Cal- 
vinian] reprobation of some others unto death,” even unto eternal death, 
or damnation. But I ask, again, what can be mere unreasonable and 
unjust than to appoint millions of unborn infants to personal, conscious, 
unavoidable, and eternal death, through the horrible medium of a per- 


sonal, unavoidable perseverance in sin; and this merely Tor a sin which 


they never personally and consciously committed ? 

A fourth flaw in Mr. Whitefield’s argument consists in confounding 
the Calvinian with the Scriptural imputation of Adar’s sin. If God 
imputed sin to Adam’s offspring in its seminal state, it was merely 
because Adam’s offspring seminally sinned in him. God’s imputation is 
always according to truth. When Adam had actually tainted his soul 
with sin, and his body with mortality, sinfulness and mortality actually 
tainted all his offspring then in his loms; and therefore God can truly 


impute sinfulness and mortality to all, that is, he could truly account 


them all to be what they really were, 7. e. seminally sinful and mortal. 
How different is this righteous imputation, from the imputation main- 
tained by Zelotes! a cruel, supposed imputation this, whereby God is 


represented as arbitrarily determining that numberless myriads of — 


unformed men shall be so accounted guilty of a sin which they never 
personally committed, as to be personally and absolutely predestinated to 
eternal death, through the horrible medium of necessary, remediless sin! 

If Zelotes reply : “ God may as justly impute Adam’s sin to the natu- 
ral seed of Adam, as he does impute Christ’s righteousness to the 
spiritual seed of Christ:” I reply, (1.) The case is not parallel. The 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 235 


king may justly give a thousand pounds gratis to whom he pleases, but 
he cannot give a thousand stripes gratis to whom he pleases, because 
free wrath is absolutely incompatible with justice. (2.) “Faith is im- 
puted for righteousness ;” or, if you please, God imputes righteousness 
to believers. Now, who are believers? Are they not men who have 
faith? men who have that grace which unites them to Christ the 
righteous, and by which they actually derive from Christ (in various 
degrees) not only a peculiar interest in his merits, but also the very 
righteousness, the very hatred of sin, and the very love of virtue, 
which were in the heart of Christ? Therefore when God imputes 
faith for righteousness, or when he imputes righteousness to believers, 
he only accounts that what is in believers is actually there ; or, if, 
you please, that believers are what they really are, that is, righteous. 
Hence it appears, that to support Calvinian imputation of sin, by 
Calvinian imputation of righteousness, is only to defend one chimera by 
another. 

Mr. Whitefield’s argument in defence of Calvinian reprobation ap- 
pears to us so much the more inconclusive, as it is not less contrary to 
Scripture than to reason. Who can fairly reconcile that reprobation to 
the texts which intimate that “this proverb shall no more ‘be used in 
Israel :—The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the case is remediless ; 
the children’s teeth being necessarily and eternally set on edge ?” that 
“the son shall not eternally die,” or be reprobated to eternal death 
“for the sins of the father ;” that “God’s mercy is over all his works” 
till provoked free grace gives place to just wrath; that he “willeth not 
primarily the death of a simer ;” and that “God our Saviour will have 
all men to be saved,” in a rational; evangelic way, that is, by freely 
working out their own salvation in subordination to his free grace. 

From all the preceding answers, I hope I may conclude, that the “in- 
extricable dilemma” is a mere sophism;. and that the truly reverend 
Mr. Whitefield understood far better how to offer up a warm prayer, 
and preach a pathetic sermon, than how to follow error into her 
lurking holes, in order to seize there the twisting viper with the 
tongs of truth, and bring her out to public view, stripped of her shining, 
slippery dress, and darting in vain her forked and hissing tongue. 

IV. Having answered the threefold objection of Zelotes, Mr. Top- 
lady, and Mr. Whitefield, I shall now retort it, and show, that upon the 
plan of the Calvinian “ doctrines of grace” and wrath—of unavoidable, 
finished salvation for a fixed number of elect, and of unavoidable, 
finished damnation for a fixed number of reprobates, all the Divine per- 
fections (sovereignty not excepted) suffer a partial, or a total eclipse. I 
have, it is true, done it already in the Checks: but as my opponents do 
not seem to have taken the least notice of the passage I refer to, though 
it contains the strength of our cause with respect to the Divine perfec. 
tions, I beg leave to produce it a second time. If in a civil court a 
second citation is fair and expedient, why might it not be so too in a 
court of controversial judicature? I sBdpadbre ask a second time :-— 

“What becomes of God’s goodness, if the tokens of it, which he 
gives to millions of men, be only intended to enhance their ruin, or 
cast a deceitful veil over his everlasting wrath? What of his mercy, 
which ‘is over all his works,’ if millions were for ever excluded from 


236 EQUAL CHECK. _ [parr 


the least interest in it, by an absolute decree that constituted. them ves- 
sels of wrath from all eternity? What becomes of his justice, if he sen 
tence myriads of men upon myriads to everlasting fire, ‘because they. — 
have not believed on the name of his only begotten Son ;’ when, if they 
had believed that he was their Jesus, their “Saviour, they would have | 
believed a monstrous lie, and claimed what they have no more right to, 
than I have to the crown of England? What of his veracity, and the — 
oath he swears that he ‘willeth not primarily the death of a sinner;’ | 
if he never affords most sinners sufficient means of escaping eternal | 
death? if he sends his ambassadors to ‘every creature,’ declaring 
that ‘all things are now ready’ for their salvation, when nothing but 
‘ Tophet is prepared of old’ for the inevitable destruction of a vast ma- 
jority of them? What becomes of his holiness, if, in order to condemn 
the reprobates with some show of justice, and to secure the end of his 
decree of reprobation, which is, that ‘millions shall absolutely sin and 
be damned,’ he absolutely fixes the means of their damnation, that is, 
their sins and wickedness? What of his wisdom, if he seriously expostu- 
lates with souls as dead as corpses, and gravely urges to repentance and 
faith persons that can no more repent and believe, than fishes can speak 
and sing? What.becomes of his long suffering, if he waits to have an 
opportunity of sending the reprobates into a deeper hell, and not sincerely 
to give them a longer time to ‘save themselves from this perverse gene- 
ration 1’? What of his equity, if there was mercy for Adam and Eve, who 
personally broke the hedge of duty, and wantonly rushed out of para- 
dise into this howling wilderness ; while there is no mercy for millions 
of their unfortunate children, who are born in a state of sm and misery 
without any personal choice, and of consequence without any personal 
sin? And what becomes of his omniscience, if he cannot foreknow fu- 
ture contingencies? if to foretel, without a mistake, that such a thing © 
will happen, he must necessitate it, or do it himself? Was not Nero as — 
wise in this respect? Could not he foretel that Phebe should not con- 
tinue a virgin, when he was bent upon ravishing her? That Seneca 
should not die a natural death, when he had determined to have him 
murdered? And that Crispus should fall into a pit, if he obliged him to 
run a race at midnight in a place full of pits? And what old woman in 
the kingdom could-not precisely foretel that a silly tale should be told — 
at such an hour, if she were resolved to tell it herself; or, at any rate, 
make a child do it for her? 

“Again: what becomes of God’s ‘loving kindnesses, which have been 
ever of old toward the children of men? And what of his impartiality, 
if most men, absolutely reprobated for the sin of Adam, are never 
placed in a state of personal trial and probation? Does not God use 
them far less kindly than he does devils, who were tried every one ‘for 
himself, and remain in their diabolical state, because they brought it 
upon themselves by a personal choice? Astonishing! That the Son of 
God should have been flesh of the flesh, and bone of the bone of millions 
of men, whom, upon the Calvinistic scheme, he never indulged so far as 
he did devils! What a hard-hearted relation to myriads of his fellow — 
men does Calvin represent our Lord! Suppose Satan had become our — 
kinsman by incarnation, and had by that mean got the right of redemp- 
tion, would he not have acted like himself, if he had not only left the 


‘THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 237 


majority of them in the depths of the fall, but enhanced their misery by 
the sight of his partiality to the elect? 

“Once more: what becomes of fair dealing, ff God every where 
represents sin as the dreadful evil which causes damnation, and yet 
the most horrid sins work for good to some, and, as P. O. intimates, 
‘accomplish their salvation through Christ ?” And what of honesty, if the 
God of truth himself promises that ‘all the families of the earth shall be 
blessed in Christ,’ when he has cursed a vast majority of them with a 
decree of absolute reprobation, which excludes them from obtaining an 
interest in him, even from the foundation of the world? 

“Nay, what becomes of his sovereignty itself, if it is torn from the 
mild and gracious attributes by which it is tempered? If it is held forth 
in such a light as renders it more terrible to millions than the sovereignty 
of Nebuchadnezzar in the plain of Dura appeared to Daniel’s companions, 
when ‘the form of his visage was changed against them, and he decreed 
that they should be cast into the burning fiery furnace? For they 
might have saved their bodily life, by bowing to the golden image, which 
was a thing in their power; but poor Calvinian reprobates can escape 
at no rate; the ‘horrible decree’ is gone forth; they must, in spite of 
their best endeavours, ‘dwell,’ body and soul, ‘ with everlasting burn- 
ings.’ ” 

To these queries, taken from the Third Check, I now add those which 
follow :—What becomes of God’s infinite power, if he cannot make free 
agents, or creatures endued with free will? And what of his boundless 
wisdom, if, when he has made such creatures, he knows not how to rule, 
overrule, reward, and punish them, without necessitating them, that is, 
without undoing his own work—without destroying their free agency, 
which is his masterpiece in the universe? Nay, what would become of 
the Divine immutability, about which Zelotes makes so much ado, if 
after God had suspended in all the Scriptures the reward of eternal life, 
and the punishment of eternal death, upon our unnecessitated works of 
faith and unbelief, he so altered his mind, in the day of judgment, as to 
suspend heavenly thrones, and infernal racks, only upon the good works 
of Christ, and the bad works of Adam; through the necessary medium 
of faith and holiness, absolutely forced upon some men to the end ; and 
through the necessary means of unbelief and sin, absolutely bound upon 
all the rest of mankind? And, to conclude, how shall we be able to 
praise God for his invariable faithfulness, if his secret will and public 
declarations are at almost perpetual variance ? And if Zelotes’ doctrines 
of grace tempt us to complain with the poet, 


Nescio quo teneam mutantem Protea nodo ;* 


instead of encouraging us to say, with David, “ For ever, O Lord, thy 

word is settled in heaven :” “thy faithfulness is unto all generations.” 
If Zelotes cannot answer these queries in as rational and Scriptural a 

manner as his objections have, I trust, been answered; will not the 


* “ He is like Proteus: I know not how to hold him” whether by his secret 
will, which has absolutely predestinated millions of men to necessary sin and 
eternal damnation; or by his revealed will, which declares that he willeth not 
primarily that any man should perish, but that ail should be etérnally saved, by 
“working out their own salvation,” according to the talent of will and power, 
which he gives to every :nan to profit withal. 


238 EQUAL CHECK. _ [parr 


Calvinian doctrines «.f unscriptural free grace and everlasting free wrath _ 


appear to unprejudiced persons as great enemies to the Divine perfee 
tions, and to “the sincere milk of God’s word,” as Virgil’s Harpies 
were to the Trojan hero, and to his richly spread tables? And is there 
not some resemblance between the Diana and Hecate whom I unmask, 
and the petty goddesses whom the poet describes thus ? 
' Sive* Dew, seu sint dire obsceneque vohucres,— -! 
Tristius haud illis monstrum, nee sevior ulla 
Pestis et ira deum Stygiis sese extulit undis. 
Virginei volucrum vultus, fedissima ventris 
Proluvies, uneeque manus :—nec vulnera tergo 
Accipiunt: ceterique fuga sub sidera lapse, 
Semesam predam, et vestigia feda relinquunt. 


SECTION XI. 


Zelotes’ last objection against a reconciliation with Honestus—In answer 
to it, the reconciler shows, by various illustrations, that the Scriptures 
do not contradict themselves in holding forth first and second causes— 
Primary and subordinate motives ; and that the connection of free grace 
with free will is properly illustrated by the Scriptural emblem of a 
marriage ; this relation exactly representing the conjunction and oppo- 
sition of the two Gospel axioms, together with the pre-eminence of free 
grace, and the subordination of free will. 


Ir you compare the prejudice of Zelotes against Honestus to a strong 
castle, the objections which fortify that castle may be compared to the 
rivers which were supposed to surround Pluto’s palace. Six of them 
we have already crossed ; one more obstructs our way to the reconcilia- 
tion, and, like Phlegethon, it warmly runs in the following lines :— 

Oxszction VII. “When King Joram said to Jehu, ‘Is it peace‘ 
Jehu answered, ‘ What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother 
Jezebel are so many?’ And what peace can I make with Honestus 
and you, so long as you adulterate the Gospel, by what you call the 
evangelical marriage, and what I call the monstrous mixture of free 
grace and free will? I cannot, in conscience, take one step toward a 
reconciliation, unless you can make appear that, upon your conciliating 
plan, the dignity of free grace is properly secured. But, as this is impos- 
sible, I can only look upon your Scripture Scales as a new attempt to 
set one part of the Scripture against the other, and to give infidels more 
room to say that the Bible is full of contradictions.” 

Answer. Exceedingly sorry should I be, if the Scripture Scales haé 
ihis unhappy tendency. ‘To remove your groundless fears in this re. 
spect, and to prevent the hasty triumph of infidels, permit me, (1.) Te 
show that what at first sight seems a contradiction in the scriptures 
which compose my Scales, appears, upon due consideration, to be only 


* «OTs hard to say whether they are goddesses or fowls obscene. However 
they are as ugly and dangerous appearances as. ever ascended from the Stygiaz 
lake. They have faces like virgins, hands like birds’ claws, and an intolerable 
filthy looseness! As for their body, it is invulnerable; at lvast, you cannot 
wound it, they so nimbly fly away into the clouds; leaving the food, which they 
greedily tore, polluted by their defiling touch.” 


| “THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 239 


the just subordination of second causes to the first, or the proper union 
of inferior motives with leading ones. Aad, (2.) To prove what Zelotes 
calls “a monstrous mixture of free grace and free will,” is their im- 
portant concurrence, which the Scriptures frequently represent to us 
under the significant emblem of a marriage. Plain illustrations will 
throw more light upon the subject than deep arguments; I shall there- 
fore use the former, because they are within the reach of every body, 
and because Zelotes cannot set them aside under pretence that they are 
“ metaphysical.” 

~ L May we not, on different occasions, use with propriety words which 
seem contradictory, and which nevertheless agree perfectly together? 
For instance: with respect to the doctrine of first and second causes, 
and of primary and secondary means, may I not say, “I ploughed my 
field this year,” because I ordered it to be ploughed? May I not say, 
on another occasion, “Such a farmer ploughed it alone,” because no 
other farmer shared in his toil? May I not, the next moment, point at 
his team, and say, “These horses ploughed all my field alone if I 
want to intimate that no other horses were employed in that business? 
And yet, may I not by and by show Zelotes a new constructed plough, 
and say, “That light plough ploughed all my field?” Would it be right 
in Zelotes or Lorenzo to charge me with shuffling, or with self contra- 
diction, for these different assertions ? 

If this illustration do not sufficiently strike the reader, I ask, May 
not a clergyman, without a shadow of prevarication, say, on different 
occasions, I hold my living through Divine permission; through the 
lord chancellor’s presentation ; through a liberal education ; through my 
subscriptions ; through the bishop’s institution, &c? May not all these 
expressions be true, and proper on different occasions? And may not 
these causes, means, and qualifications, concur together, and be all 
2ssential in their places ? 

Once more: speaking of a barge that sails up the river, may I not, 
without contradicting myself, say one moment, The wind alone (in oppo- 
sition to the tide) brings her up? And if the next moment I add, Her 
sails alone (in opposition to oars or haling lines) bring her up against 
the stream, would it be right to infer that I exclude the tackling of 
the vessel, the rudder, and the steersman from being necessary in their 
places? Such, however, is the inference of Zelotes. For while Honestus 
thinks him an enthusiast, for supposing that absolutely nothing but wind 
and sail [grace and faith] is requisite to spiritual navigation, Zelotes 
thinks that Honestus is hardly fit to be a cabin boy in the ship of the 
Church, because he lays a particular stress on the right management of 
the tackling and rudder ; and both will perhaps look upon me as a 
trimmer, because, in order to reconcile them, I assert that the wind and 
sails, the masts and yards, the rigging and the rudder, the compass and 
pulot have each their proper use ‘and office. 

II. With respect to primary and secondary motives, may I not say 
that Christ humbled himself to the death of the cross, out of obedience 
to his Father ; out of compassionate love for a lost world; that he might 
put away sin by the sacrifice cf himself; that w hosoever believeth in 
nim should not perish; that the Scriptures might be fulfilled; that he 
might leave us an example of humble patience ; that through “death he 


240 EQUAL CHECK. (parr 


might destroy the prince of darkness; and that he might see the fruit 
of the travail of his soul, obtain the joy that was set before him, and be 
satisfied? Would Zelotes show himself a judicious divine, if he intimated 
that these motives are incompatible and contradictory? May not a 
variety of motives sweetly concur to the same end? May you not, for 
example, relieve your indigent neighbour, out of fear lest you should 
meet the fate of the inexorable rich man in hell? Out of pity for a 
fellow creature in distress? Out of regard for him as a fellow Christian ? 
Out of a desire to maintain a good conscience, and to keep the com 
mandments? Out of gratitude, love, and obedience to Christ? That 
the worthy name by which we are called Christians may not be blas- 
phemed? That your neighbour may be edified? That you may show 
your love to God? That you may declare your faith in Christ? That 
you may lay up treasure in heaven? That, like a faithful steward, you 
may deliver up your accounts with joy? ‘That you may receive the 
reward of the inheritance? That you may be justified by your works 
as a believer in the great day, &c? May not all these motives, like the 
various steps of Jacob’s mysterious ladder, perfectly agree together? 
And if a good work “ comes up for a memorial before God,” winged with 
all these Scriptural motives, is it not likely to be more acceptable than 
one which ascends supported only by one or two such motives?! 

Zelotes frequently admits but of two causes of our salvation, and 
recommends but one motive of good works. The two causes of eternal 
salvation, which he generally confines himself to, are Christ and faith: 
and, what is most astonishing, Solifidian as he is, he sometimes gives up 
even faith itself: for if he reads that “ faith was imputed to Abraham for 
righteousness,” he tells you that faith is to be taken objectively for Christ 
and his good works; which is just as reasonable as if I said that when 
Sir Isaac Newton speaks of the eye and of a telescope, he intends that 
these words should be taken objectively, and should mean the sun and 
the moon. Again: as Zelotes frequently admits but one cause of salva- 
tion, that is, Christ’s righteousness, so he often admits but one motive of 
sincere obedience, and that is, the love of Christ known by name. Hence 
he gives you to understand that all the good works of those who never 
heard of Christ are nothing but splendid sins. To ayoid his mistake, 
we need only admit a variety of causes and motives: and to steer clear 
of the error of Honestus, we need only pay to the Redeemer the so justly 
deserved honour of being, in conjunction with his Father and Spirit, the 
grand original cause, and as he is the Lamb slain, the one properly 
meritorious cause of our salvation; representing a grateful love to him 
as the noblest and most powerful motive to obedience, where the Christian 
Gospel is preached. In following this reasonable and catholic method, 
we discover the harmony of the Scriptures; we reconcile the opposite 
texts which fill the Scripture Seales ; and far from giving room to infidels 
to say that the Bible is full of contradictions, we show the wonderful 
agreement of a variety of passages, which, upon the narrow plans of 
Zelotes and Honestus, are really inconsistent, if not altogether contra- 
dictory. 1 


III. With respect to the two Gospel axioms and their basis, FREE _ 


GRACE and FREE WILL, contrary as they seem to each other, they agree 
as well as a thousand harmonious contrasts around us. If Zelotes 


THIRD. | SCRIPTURE SCALES. Q41 


consider the natural world in a favourable light, he will see nothing but 
opposition in harmony. Midnight darkness, when it is reconciled with 
the blaze of noon, crowns our hills with the mild, the delightful light of, 
the rising or setting sun. When sultry summers and frozen winters 
meet half way, they yield the flowers of the spring and the fruits of 
autumn. If the warming beams of the sun act in conjunction with 
cooling showers, the earth opens her fruitful bosom, and crowns our 
fields with a plenteous harvest. Reflect upon your animal frame : how 
does it subsist? Is it not by a proper union of opposite things, fluids 
and solids? And by a just temperature of contrary things, cold and 
heat? Consider your whole self: are you not made of a thinking soul, 
and of an organized body? Of spirit and matter? Thus two things, 
which are exactly the reverse of each other, by harmonizing together, 
form man, who is the wonder of the natural world: just as the Son of 
God, united to the son of Mary, forms Christ, who is the wonder of the 
spiritual world. , 

I readily confess that the connection of the two Gospel axioms, like 
that of matter and spirit, is a deep mystery. But as it would be absurd 
to infer that man is an imaginary being, because we cannot explain how 
thought and reason can be connected with flesh and blood: so would it 
be unreasonable to suppose that the coalition of free grace with free will 
is a chimera in divinity, because we cannot exactly describe how they 
are coupled. We are, however, indebted to St. Paul for a most striking 
emblem of the essential opposition and wonderful union that subsist 
between the two axioms, or (which comes to be the same thing) between 
the Redeemer and the redeemed—between free grace and free will. 

If the true Church is a mystical body composed of all the souls whose 
submissive free will yields to free grace, and exerts itself in due subordi- 
nation to our loving Redeemer ; does it not follow that free grace exactly 
answers to Christ, and holy free will to God’s holy Church? “ Now,” 
says the apostle, “the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ 
is the head of the Church: husbands, love your wives as Christ loved 
the Church: a man shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be 
one flesh: this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and 
the Church ;” and upon the preceding observation I take the liberty to 
add :—This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning FREE GRACE and 
FREE witt. If marriage is a Divine institution, honourable among all 
men, and typical of spiritual mysteries: if Isaiah says, “'Thy Maker is 
thy husband :” if Hosea writes, “ In that day, says Jehovah, thou shalt 
call me Isur ;” that is, my HUSBAND: if St. Paul says to the Corinthians, 
«T have espoused you as a chaste virgin to one HUSBAND, even Christ :” 
and if he tells the Romans that they “are become dead to the law, that 
they should be married to another, even to nim who is raised from the 
dead, that they should bring forth fruit unto God :” if the sacred writers, 
I say, frequently use that emblematical way of speech, may I not reve- 
rently tread in their steps, and in the fear of God warily run the parallel 
between the conjugal tie and the mystical union of free grace and free 
will? And,— 

(1.) “If the husband is the head of the wife,” as says St. Paul; or 
her lord, as St. Peter intimates ; is not free grace the head and lord of 
free will? Has it not the pre-eminence in all things? (2.) If the bride- 

Vou. IL, 16 


242 EQUAL CHECK [part 


groom makes his address to the bride first, without foreing or binding 
her with cords of necessity, does not free grace also seek free will first, 
without forcing it, and chaining it down with necessitating, Turkish de- 
crees? (3.) If the mutual, unnecessitated, voluntary consent of the 
bridegroom and of the bride, is the very essence of marriage; may I 
not say that the mutual, unnecessitated, voluntary consent of free grace 
and free will makes the marriage between Christ and the willing souls, 
whom St. John calls “the bride,” and “the Lamb’s wife?” (4.) The 
husband owes no obedience to his wife, but the wife owes all reasonable 
obedience to her husband. And does not the parallel hold here also? 
Must not free will humbly and obediently submit to free grace, as Sarah 
did to Abraham, calling him lord? (5.) The man is to “ give honour 
to his wife, as to the weaker vessel :” and does not free grace do so to 
free will, its inferior? Is not its condescending language, “ Behold, I 
stand at the door and knock: open to me, my sister, my love,” &c. 
Yea, does not free grace, like St. Paul, “become all things [but sin and 
wantonness] to all men, that by any means it may gain the free will of 
some?” (6.) “If the unbelieving wife departs, let her depart,” says St. 
Paul. And if unbelieving free will is bent upon eloping from free grace, 
may it not do it? Is it locked up as the sultanas are in Turkey? Al- 
though incarnate free grace compassionately mourned over the obstinate 
free will of the Jews, did it dragoon them into compliance? Was not 
its language, “I would and ye would not?”* “Thou hast been weary 
of me, O Israel. My people would none of me; so I gave them up 
to their own hearts’ lust, and they walked in their own counsel :” doing, 
as a nation, what Judas was judicially permitted to do as an individual. 
(7.) In case of adultery is it not lawful for the husband to put away his 
wife? And may not free grace repudiate free will for the same reason? 
‘When the free will of Judas had long carried on an adulterous com- 
merce with mammon; and when he refused to return, did not our 
Lord put him away, giving him a bill of divorce, together with the fatal 
sop? And far from detaining him by fulsome Calvinian caresses, did 
he not publicly say, “‘ Wo to that man! What thou doest, do quickly. 
Remember Lot’s wife?” (8.) Can the husband, or the wife, have chil- 
dren alone? Can free grace do human good works without human free 


will? Did not our Lord speak a self-evident truth, when he declared, ° 


« Without me ye can do nothing?’ And did not St. Paul set his seal to 
it when he said, “‘ We are not sufficient, of ourselves, to think any thing 
[morally good] as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God. Not I, 
[alone or principally] but the grace of God, which was with me?” And, 
morally speaking, what can Christ do as the husband of the Church, 


* Some Calvinists have done this great truth justice, and among them the 
judicious Mr. Ryland, of Northampton, A. M., who hath published an extract 
from Dr. Long, bishop of Norwich, descriptive of the resemblance that man 
bears to God. The first article of his extract runs thus :—‘ The soul is an image 
of the almighty power of God. God has a power of beginning motion: so has 
the soul. God’s will acts with astonishing sovereignty, and absolute dominion 
and pleasure, where, and when, and how he will. The soul chooses or refuses, 
accepts or rejects an object, with an amazing resemblance to God. Even devils 
and the wicked refuse God with sovereign will and a most free contempt.” 
Hence it appears that to rob man of free agency, under pretence of making free 
grace all in all, is to destroy the first feature of God’s image in his living picture, 
man 


ee ee ee hd 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 243 


without her concurrence? What beside atoning, inviting, pre-engaging, 
and drawing?) Do we not read, that he could not do many works 
among the people of Nazareth, because of their unbelief? And for 
want of co-operation or concurrence in sinners, does he not complain, 
“J have laboured in vain: I have spent my strength for naught: all 
the day long I stretched forth my hands, and no man regarded?” Lasr- 
ty: may I not observe that as the procreation of children is the most 
important consequence of marriage ; so the production of “the fruits of 
righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ,” is the most important conse- 
quence of the harmonious opposition of free grace and free will, when 
they are joined together in that evangelical marriage, which the Scrip- 
ture calls “faith working by love ?” 

Should Zelotes object here that “some good people produce all the 
fruits of righteousness, and do all the good works which St. Paul expects 
from believers, though they will hear of nothing but free grace, and 
perpetually decry their own good works:” I reply, that there are such 
persons is granted: nor are they less conspicuous for their unreason- 
ableness, than for their piety. They may rank for consistency with a 
woman, who is excessively fond of her husband, and peevish with every 
body else, especially with her own children. Her constant language is, 
«« My husband is all in all in the house; he does every thing: I am ab- 
solutely nobody, I am worse than any body, I am a monster, I bring 
forth nothing but monsters: my best productions are dung, dross, and 
filthy rags,” &c, &c. A friend of her husband, tired to hear such 
speeches day by day, ventures to set her right by the followmg ques- 
tions :—“ Pray, madam, if your husband is all in all im the house, is he 
his own wife? If he does all that is done under your roof, did he get 
drunk the other day when your footman did so? Does he bear his own 
children, and give them suck? If you are absolutely nobody, who is 
the mother of the fine boy that hangs at your breast? And if that child 
is a mere* monster, why do you dishonour your husband by fathering a 
monster upon him?’ While she blushes and says, “ I hate controversy, 
I cannot bear carnal reasonings,” &c, I close this parallel between mar- 
riage, and the evangelical union of free grace and free will, by some 
remarks, which; I hope, will reconcile Zelotes and Honestus to the har- 
monious opposition of the seemingly contrary doctrines of grace and 
justice, of faith and works, of free grace and free will, which answer to 
the two Gospel axioms, and are balanced in the two Scripture Scales. 

Union without opposition is dull and insipid. You are acquainted 
with the pleasures of friendship: you would gladly go miles to shake 
hands with an intimate friend ; but why did you never feel any pleasure 


* Walking about my parish some years ago, I heard a collier’s wife venting 
her bad humour upon somebody, whom she called ‘‘ son of a b—h.” I went into 
the house to make peace; and finding it was her own son, whom she thus 
abused, I expostulated with her about the absurdity of her language, so far as it 
offended God, and reflected upon herself. I might have added that if her child 
was the son of a b—ch, he must also be the son of a d—g; a circumstance this not 
less dishonourable to her husband than to herself: but I really forgot this argu- 
ment [ad mulierem] at that time. However, I mention it here, in hopes that 
Zelotes, who, through voluntary humility, calls his good works as many bad 
names as the woman did her son, will take the hint, and will no more reflect 
upon Christ, by injudiciously loading the productions of his free grace with 
Antinomian abuse. 


244 EQUAL CHECK. [Parr 


in shaking your left hand with your right, and in returning the friendly 
civility? Is it not because the joining of your own hands would be 
expressive of a union without proper opposition; of a union without 
sufficient room to display the mutual endearments of one free will in 
harmony with another? For what I have all along called free grace, 
is nothing but God’s gracious free will, to which the obedient free will 
of believers humbly submits itself. Why can you have no satisfaction 
in going to the fire, when a fever inflames your blood; or in drinking a 
cooling draught, when you are benumbed with cold? Is it not because 
in either case the pleasure ceases, or rather becomes pain, for want of 
proper opposition ? 

Is not opposition without union the very ground of infernal wo? 
When opposition amounts to downright contrariety, does it not end in 
fierce, destructive discord? And does not this discord produce the hor- 
rid concert which our Lord describes by “ weeping, wailing, and gnash- 
ing of teeth,” the genuine expressions of sorrow, anguish, and despair ? 
On the other hand, is not opposition in union the very soul of celestial 
joys? And should I take too much liberty with the deep things of 
God, if I ventured upon the following query :—TIs it not from the eternal, 
mysterious, ineffable opposition of Father and Son, in eternal, mysterious, 
ineffable union with each other, that the eternal love and joy of the 
Spirit proceeds to accomplish the mystery of the Divine unity, and form 
the very heaven of heaven? 

But if that question appear too bold, or too deep, I drop it, and, keep- 
ing within earthly bounds, I ask, Does not experience convince us that 
the most perfect concerts are those in which a number of instruments, 
soft as the flute, and strong as the bassoon, high sounding as the clarion, 
and deep toned as the kettle drum, properly agree with tenor, counter 
tenor, bass, and treble voices? Is it not then that the combined effects 
of slow and quick vibrations, high and low notes, sharp and flat tones 
solemn and cheerful accents, grave and shrill, melting and rousing, gen- 
tle and terrible sounds, by their harmonizing oppositions, alternately 
brace and dilate our auditory nerves ; or delightfully soothe and alarm, 
lull and ravish our musical powers? Such, and far more glorious, is 
the Gospel concert of free grace and free will: a sweetly awful concert 
this, in which prohibitions and commands, cautions and exhortations, 
alluring promises and fearful threatenings, gentle offers of mercy and 
terrible denunciations of vengeance, have all their proper places. 

Now man is brought down to the gates of hell, as a rebellious worm ; 
and now [by a proper transition] he is exalted to the heaven of heavens, 
as the friend of God. Now Christ hangs on an ignominious cross ; and 
now he fills the everlasting throne : one day as a Saviour and a prophet, 
he gives grace, he offers glory; he calls, he entreats, he weeps, he 
bleeds, he dies : another day, as a rewarder and a king, he revives and 
triumphs ; he absolves or condemns ; he opens and shuts both hell and 
heaven. The treble in this doctrinal concert appears enthusiastic jar to 
prejudiced Honestus ; and the bass passes for heretical discord with 
heated Zelotes : but an unbiassed Protestant “ knows the joyful sound” 


of free grace ; the solemn sound of free will; and the alarming sound ~ 


of just wrath ; and admitting each in his concert, he makes Scriptural 
melody to his Priest and Lawgiver—to his Redeemer and his Judge. As 


=~ 


: 


_ 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 245 


for the merry tune of Antinomian free grace, mixed with the reprovsting 
roar of Calvinian free wrath, it grates upon him, it grieves his soul, it 
diffuses chillness through his veins, it carries horror to his very heart. 

While a divine combines evangelically, and uses properly the two 
Gospel axioms, you may compare him to a musician who skilfully tunes, 
and wisely uses all the strings of his instrument. But when Zelotes and 
Honestus discard one of the evangelical axioms, they resemble a harper 
who peevishly cuts half the strings of his harp, and ridiculously confines 
himself to using only the other half. Or, to return to the Scripture 
simile of a marriage: when an unprejudiced evangelist solemnizes the 
doctrinal marriage which I contend for, he pays a proper regard to the 
bridegroom and to the bride ; he considers both free grace and free will. 
Therefore when he sees Honestus perform all the ceremony with free 
will only, he is as much surprised as if he saw a clergyman take a gold 
ring from the right hand of a woman, put it on the fourth finger of her 
left hand, and gravely try to-marry her to herself. And when he sees 
Zelotes transact all the business with free grace alone, he is not less 
astonished than if he saw a minister take a single man’s right hand, put 
it into his left hand, and render himself ridiculous by pronouncing over 
him a solemn nuptial blessing. 

If Zelotes be still afraid that upon the plan of an evangelical marriage 
between free grace and free will, the transcendent dignity of God’s grace 
is not properly secured; and that human agency will absolutely claim 
the incommunicable honours due to Divine favour ; I shall guard the 
preceding pages by some remarks, which will, I hope, remove Zelotes’ 
groundless fears, and give Honestus a seasonable caution. 

God’s gracious dispensations toward man, (or which comes to the same,) 
the dealings of free grace with free will, are frequently represented in 
Scripture under the emblem of gracious covenants. Now covenants 
which are made between the Creator and his creatures ; between the 
Supreme Being, who is absolutely independent, because he wants nothing ; 
and inferior beings, who are entirely dependent upon him, because they 
want all things; such gracious covenants, I say, always imply a match- 
less condescension on the part of the Creator, and an inconceivable obli- 
gation on the part of his creatures. Therefore, according to the doctrine 
enforced in these sheets, free grace, which shines by its own eternal 
lustre, without receiving any thing from free will, can never, in point of 
dignity, be confounded with free will; because free will borrows all its 
power and excellence from free grace ; just as the moon borrows all her 
light and glory from the sun. 

We infer, therefore, that as the moon acts in conjunction with, and 
due subordination to the sun in the natural world, without supplanting or 
rivalling the sun: so free will may act in conjunction with, and due 
subordination to free grace in the spiritual world, without rivalling, much 
more without supplanting free grace. And hence it appears that Zelotes’ 
fears lest our doctrine should pour contempt on the glory of free grace, 
are as groundless as the panic of the ancient Persians, who, when they 
saw the moon passing between the earth and the sun, imagined that the 
great luminaries which rule the day and the night were actually fighting 
for the mastery ; and absurdly dreaded that the strife would end in the 
fotal extinction of the solar light. 


246 EQUAL CHECK [part 


Ezekiel, chap. xvi, gives us an account of the glory to which God 
advanced the Jewish Church. From a state of the greatest meanness 
and pollution, he raised her to the dignity and splendour described in 
these words :—*“ I sware unto thee, and entered into a marriage coye- 
nant with thee, saith the Lord God; and thou becamest mine. I clothed 
thee also with embroidered work; I decked thee with ornaments: thou 
wast exceeding beautiful: thou didst prosper into a kingdom, and thy 
renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was per- 
fact through the comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord.” 
However, the Jewish Church (such is the power of free will !) abused 
these glorious favours, as appears from the next words :—“ Thou didst 
trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot, saith the Lord God.” 
But does this adulterous ingratitude of the Jews disprove the truth of 
Ezekiel’s doctrine, any more than the adultery of Bathsheba disproved 
her being once Uriah’s lawful wife? And can any consequence be 
charged upon the doctrine of the evangelical marriage maintained in 
these sheets, which is not equally chargeable upon the above-mentioned 
doctrine of the prophet ? 

We grant that free will too frequently forgets its place, as too many 
persons of the inferior and weaker sex forget theirs, notwithstanding their 
solemn promise of dutiful obedience till death ; but does this show, either 
that the union of indulgent free grace and dutiful free will is a heretical 
fancy : or that free will is really equal to free grace? _If imperious free 
will rises against free grace, and acts the part of a Jezebel, is not free 
grace strong enough to reduce it by proper methods, or wise enough to 
give it a bill of divorcement, if such methods prove ineffectual? Does 
Zelotes act a becoming part when he so interferes between free grace 
and free will, as to turn the latter out of the Church, under pretence of 
siding with the former? Has he any more right to do it, than I have to 
turn Queen Charlotte out of England, under pretence that bloody Mary 
abused her royal authority ? 

Why does Zelotes stumble at the doctrine of the evangelical marriage 
which I prove? And why is Lorenzo offended at the mystery of 
Christ’s incarnation? Is it not because they overlook the noble original 
of free will? If you trace the free-willing soul back to its eternal 
source, you will find that it proceeds from Him, who “breathed into the 
nostrils of Adam the breath of life,” that man might “ become a living 
soul.” And where is the absurdity of asserting that by means of the 
mysteries which we call redemption and sanctification, he reunites him- 
self to that very spirit which came from him; to that very soul which 
he breathed into the earthly Adam? If man’s dignity before the fall 
was such, that when St. Luke declares our Lord’s human generation, 
and comes to the highest round of the genealogical ladder, he is not 
afraid to say that Christ was “the son of Adam, &c, who was the son 
of God,” Luke ii, 38, where is the absurdity of supposing that God in 
Christ kindly receives his son again, when that son returns to him like 
the free-willing, penitent prodigal ? 

Nor need free will be proud of this unspeakable honour: for, not to 
mention its creation, for which it is entirely indebted to free grace, 
does it not owe to Divine favour all the blessings of redemption? If 
free grace should say to free will, “ When I passed by thee, and saw 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 247 


thee polluted in thy own blood, I said unto thee, Live ;” would not 


believing free will instantly bow to the dust, and thankfully acknowledge 
the undeserved mercy? Why then should Zelotes think that free will 
will infallibly forget its place, if it be raised to the honour of an evan- 
gelical, conjugal union with free grace? If a prince raised a filthy, ecn- 
demned, dead shepherdess from the dung-hill, the dungeon, and the grave ; . 
graciously adyancing her to princely honours, and a seat at his feet, or 
by his side; does it follow that she must necessarily forget her former 
baseness? or that his condescension must unavoidably rob him of his 
native superiority? For my part, when I hear St. John say, “ Behold 
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we [who 
submit our free will to free grace] should be called the sons of God,— 
the wife of the Lamb,” &c, far from being tempted to forget my wretch- 
edness, I am excited to “fear the Lord and his goodness,” and encou- 


- raged to ‘‘ perfect holiness in that fear ;” for “every man who hath this 


faith and hope, purifieth himself, even as God is pure:” so far is he 
from necessarily walking in pride as a vain-glorious Pharisée ; or from 
exalting himself as a self-deified antichrist! Beside, to all eternity the 
glaring truth, maintained by the apostle, will abase free wall, and secure 
the transcendent dignity of free grace: “ What hast thou, which thou 
hast not [more or less directly] received” of free, creating, persevering, 
redeeming, sanctifying, or rewarding grace? ‘ Who hath first given to 
2, and it shall be recompensed to him again?” “For of him,” i. e. of 
God, the bottomless and shoreless ocean of free grace, “and through 
him, and to him, are all good things: to whom be glory, for ever. 
Amen !” 


SECTION XII. 


The author sums up the opposite errors of Zelotes and Honestus, whom 
he invites to a speedy reconciliation—To bring them to it, he urges 
strong and soft motives; and after giving them some directions and 
encouragements, he concludes by apologizing for his plainness of 
speech. 


Ir Honestus be not averse to the rational and Scriptural terms of 
peace proposed in the preceding pages; and if I have removed the 
objections which Zelotes makes against these terms, what remains for 
me to do but to press them both to be instantly reconciled? To this 
end I shall once more urge upon them two powerful motives, the one 
taken from the unspeakable mischief done by their unreasonable divi- 
sion, and the other from the advantage and comfort which their Scrip- 
tural agreement will produce. 

Permit me, Zelotes, to begin by the mischief which you do, through 
your opposition to the moral truths maintained by Honestus. If reason 
and Scripture breathe through the preceding pages, is it not evident that, 
under pretence of exalting free grace, which is the first weight of the 
sanctuary, you throw away the second weight, which is the free will » 
offering of sincere obedience ; constantly refusing it the place of a 
weight before God, when the children of men are weighed for eternal 


248 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


life or eternal death, in the awful, decisive balance of election and 
reprobation? Does it not necessarily follow from thence that the per- 
sonal election of some men to eternal salvation is merely of unscriptural 
free grace ; while the personal reprobation of others from grace and 
glory is entirely of tyrannical free wrath? Is not this the language of 
your doctrine? “There is for the elect but one weight, bearing the 
stamp of Heaven and everlasting love; namely, the finished work of 
Christ, which is absolutely and irresistibly thrown into the scale of all 
who are predestinated to eternal life: and this golden weight is so 
heavy that, without any of their good works, it will unavoidably turn the 
scale for their eternal salvation. And, on the other hand, there is for 
the reprobates but one weight, bearing the stamp of hell and everlasting 
wrath, namely, the finished work of Adam, which is absolutely and 
irresistibly thrown into the scale of all that are predestinated to eternal 


death : and this leaden weight is so heavy, that let them endeavour ever © 


so much to rise to heavenly joys, it will necessarily sink them to eternal 
wo.” Thus you turn the Gospel into a Calvinian farrago; whereas, 
if you divided the truth aright, you would do both Gospel axioms jus- 
tice ; asserting, that although the initial salvation of sinners is of free 
grace alone; yet the eternal salvation of adult believers, which is judi- 
cially as well as graciously bestowed upon them by way of reward, is 
both of free grace and of rectified free will; both of faith, and of its 
voluntary wurks ; both of Christ living, dying, and rising again for us ; 
and of believers graciously assisted (not despotically necessitated) to 
persevere in the obedience of faith. 

The mischief does not stop here. 'To make way for your error, you 
frequently represent the second Scripture Scale, with the passages 
which it contains, as Pharisaical or Mosaical legality; distressing the 
minds of the simple by your unscriptural refinements, and hardening the 
Nicolaitans,—the practical Antinomians, in their contempt of morality 
and sincere obedience. Ido you justice, Zelotes: I confess that, like 
Christ, you hate their deeds; but, alas! like antichrist, you love, you 
dearly love their spurious doctrines of grace; and this inconsistency 
involves you in perpetual difficulties and glaring contradictions. One 
moment Solifidianism makes you extol their immoral principles; the 
next moment your exemplary piety makes you exclaim against their 
consistent immoral practices. One hour you assure them that our 
eternal justification entirely depends upon God’s absolute predestination, 
and upon the salvation completely finished by Christ for us ; you openly 
declare that, from first to last, our works have absolutely no hand in the 
business of salvation ; and you insinuate that a fallen believer is as much 
a child of God when he puts his bottle to his neighbour to make him 
drunk, or when he commits adultery and premeditates murder, as when 
he deeply repents and bears fruit meet for repentance. The next hour, 
indeed, you are ashamed of such barefaced Antinomianism. To mend 
the matter you contradict yourself, you play the Arminian, and assert 
that all drunkards, adulterers, and murderers are unbelievers, and that 
all such sinners are in the high road to hell. Thus you alternately 
encourage and chide, flatter and correct your Nicolaitan converts; but 
one caress does them more harm than twenty stripes or wounds; for 
instead of the precious balm of Gilead, you have substituted the cheap 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 249 


balm of Geneva: a dangerous salve this, which slightly heals, and teo 
often imperceptibly poisons a wounded conscience. With this applica- 
tion they soon cure themselves ; one single dose of unconditional elec- 
tion to eternal life, of inamissible, complete justification merely by the 
good works of another, or of “salvation finished in the full extent of the 
word,” without any of our outward performances, makes them as hearty 
and cheerful as any Laodiceans ever were. 

When they hear your Arminian pleas for undefiled religion, they 
wonder at your legality. If you will be inconsistent, they will not : they 
are determined to be all of a piece. You have inspired them with sove- 
reign contempt far the preceptive, remunerative, and vindictive part of 
the Gospel: nay, you have taught them to abhor it, as the dreadful 
heresy of the Arminians, Pelagians, Pharisees, and free willers. And 
thus you have inadvertently paved and pointed out the way to the Anti- 
nomian city of refuge. ‘Thither they have fled, by your direction, and 
having laid hold on the false hope which you have set before them, they 
now stand completely deceived in self-imputed and non-imparted right- 
eousness. It is true that you attack them there from time to time; 
ashamed of the genuine consequence of your partial gospel, you call 
St. James to your assistance, and erect a Wesleyan battery to demolish 
their Solifidian ramparts: but, alas! you have long since taught them to 
nail up all the pieces of evangelical ordnance ; and when you “point them 
against their towers, they do but smile at your inconsistency. Looking 
upon you as one who is not less entangled in the law, than risen Lazarus 
was in his grave clothes, they heartily pray that you may be delivered 
from the remains of Moses? veil, and see into the privileges-of believers 
as clearly as they do; and when they have briskly fired back your own 
shots, legality ! ! legality ! they sit down behind the walls which you take 
so much pains to repair, I mean the walls of mystical Geneva, singing 
there a Solifidian Requiem to themselves, and sometimes a triumphal 
Te Deum to oue another. 

Happy would it be for you, Zelotes, and for the Church of God, if the 
mischief done by your modern gospel were confined to the immoral 
fraternity of the Nicolaitans. But, alas! it produces the worst effect 
upon the moralists also. Honestus and his admirers see you extol free 
grace in so unguarded a manner, as to demolish free will, and unfurl the 
banner of free wrath. They hear you talk im such a strain of “a day 
of God’s power,” in which the elect are irresistibly converted, as to make 
sinners forget that now is the day of salvation, and the time to use one 
or two talents, till the Lord comes with more. Perhaps also Honestus 
meets with a soul frightened almost to distraction by the doctrine of ab- 
solute reprobation, which always dogs your favourite doctrine of Cal- 
vinian election. To complete the mischief you drop some deadly hints 
about the harmlessness of sin; or, what is still worse, about its profit- 
ableness and sanctifying influence with respect to believers. Neither 
height nor depth of iniquity shall separate them from the love of God 
Nay, the most grievous falls, falls into adultery and murder, shall be se 
overruled, as infallibly to drive them nearer to Christ, and of consequence. 
to make them rise higher and sing louder in heaven. This Solifidian 
gospel shocks Honestus. His moral breast swells against it with just 
indignation ; and supposing that the doctrine of free grace (of which you 


250 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


call yourself the defender) is necessarily connected with such loose prin- 
ciples, he is tempted to give it up, and begins perhaps to suspect that 
religious experiences are only the workings of a melancholy blood, or 
the conceits of enthusiastic brains. This, Zelotes, and more, is the mis 
chief you inadvertently do by your warm opposition to the doctrines of 
justice, which support the second Gospel axiom, and are inseparable 
from the Scripture doctrines of grace. Sit 

And you, Honestus, if you lay aside the first weight of the sanctuary. 
are you less guilty than Zelotes ? When you say little or nothing of the 
fall in Adam, of our recovery by Christ, and of our need of a living, 
victorious faith : and when, under the plausible pretence of asserting our 
moral agency, and pleading for sincere obedience, you keep out of sight 
the unsearchable riches of Christ, the wonderful efficacy of his atoning 
blood, and the encouraging doctrine of free grace ; do you not inadvert- 
ently confirm Deistical moralists in their destructive notions, that scraps 


of moral honesty will answer the end of exalted piety, and of renovating — 


faith? And do you not increase the prejudices of Zelotes ; making him 
believe, by your sparing use of the first Gospel axiom, that all who re- 
present morality and good works as an indispensable part of Christ’s 
Gospel, are secret enemies to free grace, and stiff maintainers of Phari- 
saic errors? 

O Zelotes, O Honestus, what have ye done? What are ye still doing? 
Alas! ye drive one another farther and farther from the complete “truth, 
as it is in Jesus.” In your unreasonable contention, you break the har- 
mony of the Gospel; ye destroy the Scripture Scales; ye tear in two 
the book of life, and run away with a mangled part, which ye fondly 
take for the whole. Ye crucify Christ doctrinally: Honestus pierces 
his right hand, while Zelotes transfixes the left; both pleading, as the 
scribes and Pharisees did, that ye only crucify a “ deceiver of the people.” 

A skilful physician, by prudently mixing two contrary drugs, may so 
temper their effect as to compound an excellent medicine. Thus those 
ingredients, which, if they were given alone, would perhaps kill his pa- 
tients, by being administered together, operate in corrective, qualifying 
conjunction, and prove highly conducive to health. Happy would it be 
for your spiritual patients, if ye imitated his skill, by evangelically com- 
bining the gracious promises, and the holy precepts, which support the 
two Gospel axioms! But, alas! ye do just the reverse, when ye indis- 
criminately administer only the truths of the first or of the second axiom. 
Thus, instead of curing your patients, ye sour their minds; Honestus 
with the poisonous leaven of the Pharisees ; and Zelotes with the killing 
leaven of the Antinomians. 

The practice of thousands shows what dangerous touches ye haye, by 
these means, given to their principles: for your admireyg, O Zelotes, are 
encouraged so to depend upon free grace, as not vigorously to exert the 
powers of free will. And it is well if some of them do not lie down in 
stupid dejection, idly waiting for an overbearing impetus of Divine grace, 
which, you insinuate, is to do all for us without us ; while others cheer- 
fully. rise up to play, in consequence of the Laodicean ease which natu- 
rally flows from the doctrine of salvation Calvinistically finished. On the 
other hand, your hearers, O Honestus, are so taught to depend upon their 
best endeavours, and the faithful exertion of their free will, that many of 


THIRD.] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 251 


them see no occasion ardently to implore the help of free grace, as de- 
prayed, impotent, blind, guilty, hell-deserving sinners ought todo. Trust- 
ing to what they will do to-morrow, they neglect and grieve the Holy 
Spirit, whichis ready to help their infirmities to-day. And it is to be 
feared that many of them play the dangerous game of procrastination 
till the Sun of righteousness sets, with respect to them;; till all their oil 
is burned, and their lamps, going out with a bad smell, leave them in the 
dreadful night when no man can work. 

Who can tell the mischiefs which ye have already done by your 
mangled gospels? It will be known im the great day. But suppose 
ye had only caused the miscarriage of one soui ; would not this be matter 
of unspeakable grief? If ye would esteem it a misfortune to have oc- 
casioned the loss of your neighbour’s horse ; think, O think, how sad a 
thing it must be to have caused, though undesignedly, the destruction of 
his soul! The loss of the cattle upon a thousand hills can be repaired ; 
but if a man should gain the whole world, and through your wrong direc- 
tions lose his own soul, what will he, what will you give in exchange for 
his soul? 

In the multitude of those, whose saly et is thus endangered, I see 
Lorenzo—sensible, thoughtful, learned Lorenzo: his case is truly 
deplorable, and a particular attention to it may convince you of the 
fatal tendency of a gospel which wants almost one half of its proper 
weight. Although the dogmatical assertions of a preacher, if they be 
supported by the charms of a mellifiuous eloquence, or the violence of a 
boisterous oratory, prevail with many; yet not with all. For while 
some greedily drink in the very dregs of error, through the weakness of 
their minds, the movableness of their passions, and the credulity which 
accompanies superstitious ignorance; others are tempted to doubt of 
the plainest truths, through the nicety of a keen wit, the refinements of 
a polite education, and the scrupulousness of a skeptical understanding. 
Lorenzo is one of this number. He is determined not to pin his faith 
upon any man’s sleeve. And he sets out in search of religious truth 
with this just principle, that religion may improve, but can never oppose 
good sense and good morals. _In this disposition Lorenzo hears Zelotes ; 
and when Zelotes begins to play upon his numerous audience with his 
rhetorical artillery, Lorenzo examines if the cannon of his eloquence is 
loaded with a proper ball; if the solidity of his arguments answers to 
the positiveness, loudness, or pathos of hisdelivery. Zelotes, not satisfied 
to preach only the doctrine contained in the first Scripture Scale, takes 
upon himself warmly to decry the doctrine contained in the second ; and 
at times he even explodes morality ; unguardedly representing it as the 
cleaner way to hell. If this be the Gospel, says Lorenzo, I must ever 
remain an unbeliever; for I cannot swallow down a cluster of incon- 
sistencies, whence the poison of immorality visibly distils. 

He hears you next, Honestus ; and he admires the rational manner in 
which you prove man’s free agency, and point out the delightful path of 
virtue ; but, alas! you mention neither our natural impotence, nor the 
help which free, redeeming grace has laid on Christ for helpless smners. 
As this doctrine is not repugnant co the light of reason, Lorenzo prefers 
it to the Solifidian scheme of Zelotes. Thus reason stands him instead 
of Christ, free will instead of free grace, and some external acts of 


252 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


benevolence instead of the faith which renews the heart. And upon the 
same leg of this outward morality he hops along in the ways of virtue, 
till a violent temptation pushes him into some gross immorality. His 
wounded conscience begins then to want ease and a cure ; but he knows 
not where to seek it. Honestus seldom points him clearly to the Saviour’s 
blood ; and when Zelotes does it, he too often defiles the sacred fountain 
with unscriptural refinements, and immoral absurdities, artfully wrapped 
up in Scripture phrases. Hence it is that Lorenzo does not see the 
remedy, or that he turns from it with contempt. Nor should I wonder 
if, while each of you thus keeps from him one of the keys of Christian 
knowledge, he remained a stranger to the Gospel, and began to suspect 
that the Bible is a mere jumble of legends and inconsistencies—an apple 
of discord thrown among men by crafty priests, and artful politicians, 
to awe the vulgar, and divert the thoughts of the inquisitive. In these 
critical circumstances he meets with Hume and Voltaire, whom he 
prefers to you both; and, renouncing equally free grace and free will, 
he flees for shelter to open infidelity and avowed fatalism. Thither 
numbers follow him daily ; and thither your refinements, O Zelotes, and 
your errors, O Honestus, will probably drive the next generation, if ye 
continue to sap the foundation of the Gospel axioms. For the Gospel 
can no more stand long upon one of its pillars, than you can stand long 
upon one of your legs. Christianity without faith, or without works, is 
like a sun without light, or without healt. Such Christianity is as different 
from primitive Christianity, as such a sun is different from the bright 
luminary at whose approach darkness flies and winters retire. 

Nor are Lorenzo, and his Deistical friends, only hurt by your doc- 
trinal mistakes. Ye, yourselves, probably feel the bad effects of your 
parting the Gospel axioms. It is hardly possible that ye should take off 
the fore wheels, or the hind wheels of the Gospel chariot, without retarding 
your own progress toward the New Jerusalem. To say nothing of your 
spiritual experiences, may I not inquire if Honestus, after all his dis. 
courses on morality and charity, might not, in some instances, be a little 
more moral, or more extensively charitable, if not to the bodies, at least 
to the souls of his neighbours? And may I not ask Zelotes, if after all 
his encomiums upon free grace, he might not be a little more averse to 
narrowness of spirit, unscriptural positiveness, and self-electing partiality ; 
a little less inclined to rash judging, contempt of his opponents, and free 
wrath ? 

Should ye find, after close examination, that these are the mischievous 
consequences of your variance ; and should ye desire to prevent them, 
ye need only go half way to meet and embrace each other. You, Zelotes, 
receive the important truth which Honestus defends, and, in subordination 
to Christ and free grace, preach free will, without whieh there can be 
no acceptable obedience. And you, Honestus, espouse the delightful 
truth recommended by Zelotes. Preach free grace, without which free 
will can neyer be productive of sincere morality. So shall you vindicate 
morality and free will with less offence to Zelotes, and with more success 
among your own admirers. In a word, instead of parting the two Gos- 
pel axioms, and filling the Church with Gnostics or formalists; with 
Antinomian believers, or faithless workers ; instead of tearing our Priest 
asunder from our King, and making Christianity a laughing stock for 


: 
; 
i 
‘ 


5 Boe ae re “hoe 


eat 


THIRD.| SCRIPTURE SCALES. 253 


infidels by your perpetual divisions, admit the use of the Scripture Scales , 
contend for the faith once delivered to the saints; and, dropping your 
unreasonable and unscriptural objections against each other, seek, hand 
in hand, “ Fulsome,” the gross Antinomian, and Lorenzo, the immoral 
moralist ; earnestly seek these lost sheep, which ye have inadvertently 
driven from the good Shepherd, and which now wander upon the dark 
mountains of immorality and skepticism. ‘They may be brought back ; 
they are not yet devoured by the roaring lion. If you will reclaim them, 
you, Honestus, calm the agitated breast of Lorenzo, and strengthen his 
feeble knees, by all the reviving, exhilarating truths of the first Gospel 
axiom. And you, Zelotes, instead of frightening him from these truths 
by adulterating the genuine doctrine of free grace, with loose, Solifidian 
tenets; or by slyly dropping into the cup of salvation which you offer 
him, poisonous drops of free wrath, Calvinian reprobation, and necessary 
damnation ; recommend yourself to his reason and conscience by all the 
moral truths which spring from the fitness of things and the second 
Gospel axiom. With regard to Fulsome, remember, O Zelotes, that you 
are commanded to “ feed the fat with judgment,” and that Christ-himself 
fed the ancient Laodiceans with that convenient food. Give therefore 
to this modern Laodicean chiefly the Gospel truths which fill the second 
Gospel scale. But give them to him in full weight. Let him have a 
good measure, pressed down, and running over into his Antinomian 
bosom, till he “ hold the truth in unrighteousness’ no more. And that 
he may receive the “ whole truth as it is in Jesus,” be you persuaded, 
Honestus, to second Zelotes. Enforce your moral persuasions upon 
Fulsome, by all the weighty, evangelical arguments which the first axiom 
suggests. So shall you break the force of his prejudices. He will see 
that sincere obedience is inseparable from true faith ; and, being taught 
by happy experience, he will soon acknowledge that the doctrine of free 
will is as consistent with the doctrine of free grace, as the free returning 
of our breath is consistent with the free drawing of it. Thus ye will 
both happily concur in converting those whom ye have imadvertently 
perverted. 

While, like faithful dispensers of Gospel truths, ye weigh in this man- 
ner to every one his portion of physic or food in due season, and in 
proper scales; our Lord, by lifting upon you the light of his pleased 
countenance, will make you sensible, that, in spirituals as well as in 
temporals, “a false balance is an abomination to him; but a just weight 
is his delight.” Your honesty may indeed offend many of your admirers, 
and make you lose your popularity ; but prefer the testimony of a good 
conscience to popular applause; and the witness of God’s Spirit to the 
praise of party men. Nor be afraid to share the fate of our great Pro- 
phet, and of his blunt forerunner, who, by firmly standing to the Gospel 
axioms, lost their immense congregations and their lives. Christ fell a 
sacrifice not only to Divine justice, but also to Caiaphas’ Pharisaic rage 
against the truths contained in the first Scale ; and John the Baptist had 
the honour of being beheaded, for bearing his bold testimony to those 
contained in the second Scale, and against the Antinomianism of a pro- 
fessing prince, who “observed him, heard him gladly, and did many 
things.” O Honestus, O Zelotes, think it an honour to tread in the 
steps of these two martyred champions of truth. Let them revive, and 


954 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


preach again in you. Shrink not at the thought of the Pharisaic con- 
tempt, and of the Antinomian abuse which await you, if you are deter- 
mined to preach both the anti-Pharisaic and the anti-Solifidian part of 
the Gospel. On the contrary, be ambitious to suffer something for him, 
who calls himself the truth: for him, who suffered so much for you, and 
who, fer the joy of your salvation, which was set before him, despised 
the shame, endured the cross, and now sits at God’s right hand, ready 
to reward your faithfulness with a crown of righteousness, life, and 
lory. 
7 Ye should wade to that triple crown through floods of persecution, 
and rivers of blood, if it were necessary. But God may not call you 
to suffer for your faithfulness. And if he do, he will reward you, even 
in this life, with a double portion of peace and love. While the demon 
of discord sows the tares of division, and blows up the coals which bi- 
gotry has kinaled, ye shall inherit the beatitude of peace makers. “The 
peace of God, which passes all understanding,” shall rest upon you as 
it does upon all the sons of peace. And the delightful tranquillity 
restored to the Church, shall flow back into your own souls, and be 
extended as a river to your families and neighbourhood, which your 
opposite extremes have perhaps distracted. 

What a glorious prospect rises before my exulting imagination! A 
holy, catholic Church! A Church, where the communion of saints, 
the forgiveness of sins, and the foretastes of eternal life, are constantly 
enjoyed ; where swords are beat into reaping hooks; and where shouts 
for controversial engagements are turned into songs of brotherly love! 
To whom, next to God, are we obliged for this wonderful change? It 
is to you, Zelotes, whose intemperate zeal is now rectified by the judi- 
cious solidity of Honestus; and to you, Honestus, whose phlegmatic 
religion is now corrected by the fervour of Zelotes. Henceforth, in- 
stead of contending with each other, ye amicably bear together the ark 
of the Lord. While ye triumphantly sustain the sacred load, and while 
Christian psalmists joyfully sing, “Behold how good and pleasant a 
thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity; union is the refresh- 
ing dew which falls upon the hill of Sion, where the Lord has promised 
his blessing, and life for evermore :”’—while they’sing this, I see the 
thousands of Israel pass the “waters of strife,” and take possession of 
the land of Canaan—the spiritual kingdom of God. Their happiness is 
almost paradisiacal! “The multitude of them that believe are of one 
heart and of one soul: they continue steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine 
and fellowship—in breaking of bread, and in prayers. ‘They eat their 
meat with gladness and singleness of heart; neither says any of them 
that aught of the things which he possesses is his own: for they have 
all things common ; they are perfected in one.” Truth has cast them 


into the mould of love. Their hearts and their language are no more ~ 


divided. They think and speak the same. In a word, Babel is “no 
more, and the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven.- 

O Zelotes! O Honestus! shall this pleasing prospect vanish away as the 
colours of the rambow? Will ye stil) make Lorenzo think that the Acts 
of the Apostles is a religious novel? And the Christian harmony there 
described a delusive dream? O God of peace, truth, and love, suffer 
1t not. Bless the scriptures, bless the arguments which fill these pages. 


THIRD. ] SCRIPTURE SCALES. 253 


Give, O give me favour in the sight of the two antagonists whom I 
address. Make me, unworthy as I am, the mean of their lasting recon- 
ciliation. Remove their prejudices; soften their hearts; humble their 
minds ; and endue me with the strength of a spiritual Samson; that, 
taking these two pillars of our divisions in the arms of praying love, I 
may bend them toward each other, and press them, breast to breast, 
upon the line of moderation, till they become one with the truth, and one 
with each other. When thou hadst prospered the endeavours of Abra- 
ham’s servant, to the bringing about the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, 
thou wroughtest new miracles. Thou didst melt angry Esau in the 
arms of trembling Jacob, and injured Joseph over the neck of his relent- 
ing brethren. Repeat, good Lord, these ancient wonders ; show thyself 
still the God of all consolation. Let me not only succeed in asserting 
the evangelical marriage of condescending free grace and humble free 
will; but also im reconciling the contentious divines, who rashly put 
asunder what thou hast so strongly joined together. 

O Zelotes! O Honestus! my heart is enlarged toward you. It ar- 
dently desires the peace of Jerusalem and your own. If to-day ye do not 
despise the consistent testimonies of the fathers, and of our reformers; 
if to-day ye regard the whispers of reason, and the calls of conscience ; 
if to-day ye reverence the suffragés of the prophets, the assertions of 
the apostles, and the declarations of Jesus Christ; if to-day “ye hear 
the voice of God” speaking to you by the Spirit of truth, and by the 
Prince of Peace; “harden not your hearts.” You, Zelotes, harden it 
not against free will, smcere obedience, and your brother Honestus. 
And you, Honestus, humbly bow to free grace, and kindly embrace your 
brother Zelotes. All things are now ready. Come together to the 
marriage of free grace and free will. Come to the feast of reconcilia- 
tion. Jesus himself will be there, to turn your bitter “ waters of jea- 
lousy” into the generous wine of “ brotherly kindness.” Too long have 
you begged to be excused; saying, “I have married a wife; I have 
espoused a party, and therefore I] cannot come!” Party spirit has 
seduced you; put away that strumpet. Espouse truth ; embrace love ; 
and you will soon give each other the right hand of fellowship. 

Ihave gently drawn you both with the bands of a man—vwith rational 
arguments. I have morally compelled you with the Spirit’s sword, “ the 
word of God.” By the numerous and heavy weights, which fill these 
Scripture Scales, | have endeavoured to turn the scale of the preju- 
dices, which each of you has entertained against one of the Gospel 
axioms. But, alas! my labour will be lost, if you are determined still 
to rise against that part of the truth, which each of you has hitherto 
defended. Come, then, when reason invites, when revelation bids, when 
conscience urges, yield to my plea: nay, yield to the solicitations of 
thousands; for although I seem to mediate alone between you both, 
thousands of well wishers to Sion’s peace, thousands of moderate men, 
wno mourn for the desolations of Jerusalem, wish success to my media- 
tion. Their good wishes support my pen; their ardent prayers warm 
my soul ; my love for peace grows importunate, and constrains me to 
redouble my entreaties. O Zelutes, O Honestus, by the names of 
Christians, and Protestants, which ye bear; by your regard for the 
honour and peace of Sion; by the blessings promised to them that love 


206 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


her prosperity ; by the curses denounced against those who widen the 
breaches of her walls; by the scandalous joy, which your injudicious 
contentions give to all the classes of infidels; by the tears of undis- 
sembled sorrow, which God’s dearest children shed im secret over the 
disputes which your mistaken zeal has raised, and which your opposi- 
tion to a part of the truth continues to foment ; by your professed regard 
for the sacred book, which your divisions lacerate, and render contemp- 
tible ; by the worth of the souls, which you fill with prejudices against 
Christianity ; by the danger of those whom you have already driven 
into the destructive errors of the Antinomians and of the Pharisees; by 
the Redeemer’s seamless garment, which you rend from top to bottom ; 
by the insults, the blows, the wounds which Christ personal received in 
the house of his Jewish friends; and by those which Christ doctrinal 
daily receives at your own hands; by the fear of being found proud 
despisers of one half of God’s revealed decrees, and rebellious opposers 


of some of the Redeemer’s most solemn proclamations ; by all the woes — 


pronounced against the enemies of his royal crown, or of his bloody 
cross; by the dreadful destruction which awaits antichrist ; whether he 
transforms himself into an angel of light, artfully to set aside Christ’s 


righteous law ; or whether he appears as a man of God, slyly to super- _ 


sede Christ’s gracious promises ; by-the horrible curse which shall light 
on them, who, when they are properly informed, and lovingly warned, 
will nevertheless obstinately continue to weigh out, in false balances, 
' the food of the poor to whom the Gospel is preached; and, above all, 
by the matchless love of him who “ was in Christ reconciling the world 
unto himself,” I entreat you, “suffer the word of reconciliation: be ye 
reconciled” to reason and conscience; to each other and to me; to all 
the Bible and to primitive Christianity; to Christ our King and to 
Christ our Priest. So shall all unprejudiced Christians meet and em- 


brace you both, upon the meridian of moderation and Protestantism, _ 


which stands at an equal distance from Antinomian dreams and Phari- 
saic delusions. 

O Zelotes! O Honestus! mistaken servants of God; if there be any 
consolation in Christ; if any delight in truth; if any comfort in love; 
if any fellowship of the Spirit ; if any bowels of mercies, fulfil ye my 
joy, and the joy of all moderate men in the Church militant ; nay, fulfil 
ye the joy of saints and angels in the Church triumphant: é be ye like 
minded ; having the same love ; being of one accord ; of one mind. Let 
nothing be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind, 
let each esteem the other better than himself. Look not each on his 
own things, [on the scriptures of his favourite scale ;] but look also on 
the things of the other,” on the passages which fill the scale defended by 
your brother. Remember, that if we “have all faith,” and all external 
works, without “ charity we are nothing.” “ Charity suffereth long, and 
is kind: charity envieth not: charity seeketh not her own: charity 
rejoiceth not in iniquity and discord, but rejoiceth in the truth,” even 
when the truth bruiseth the head of our favourite serpent—our darling 
prejudice. Let then charity, never-failing charity, perfect you both in one. 


Hang on this golden beam, and it will make you a couple of impartial, | 


complete divines, holding together as closely, and balancing one another 
as evenly as the concordant passages which form my Scripture Scales. 


si 


, 
| 


| 


: 


THIRD.) SCRIPTURE SCALES. 257 


My message respecting the equipoise of the Gospel axioms I have 
endeavoured to deliver with that plainness and earnestness which the 
importance of the subject calls for; if, in doing it, my aversion to unscrip- 
tural extremes, and my love of peaceful moderation have betrayed me 
into any unbecoming severity of thought, or asperity of expression, for- 
give me this wrong, which I never designed, and for which I would make 
you all possible satisfaction, if I were conscious of guilt in this respect. 
Ye are sensible that I could not act as a reconciler, without doing first 
the office of an expostulator and reprover; an office this which is so 
much the more thankless, as our very friends are sometimes prone to 
suspect that we enter upon it, not so much to do them good, as to carry 
the mace of superiority, and indulge, a restless, meddling, censorious, 
lordly disposition. If unfavourable appearances have represented me to 
you in these odious colours, give me leave to wipe them off, by cordial 
assurances of my esteem and respect for you. Yes, my dear, though 
mistaken brothers, I sincerely honour you both for the good which is in 
you ; being persuaded that your mistakes spring from your religious 
prejudices, and not from a conscious enmity against any part of the 
truth. When I have been obliged to expose your partiality, | have com- 
forted myself with the pleasing thought that it is a partiality to an impor- 
tant part of the Gospel. The meek and lowly Saviour, in whose steps 
I desire to tread, teaches me to honour you for the part of the truth 
which you embrace, and forbids me to despise you for that which you 
cannot yet see it your duty to espouse. Nay, so far as ye have 
defended free grace without annihilating free will, or contended for free 
will without undervaluing free grace, you have done the duty of evan- 
gelists in the midst of this Pharisaic and Antinomian generation. For 
this ye both deserve the thanks of every Bible Christian, and I publicly 
return you mine. Yes, so far as Zelotes has buiit the right wing of 
Christ’s palace, without pulling down the left ; and so far as Honestus 
has raised the left wing, without demolishing the right, I acknowledge 
that ye are both ingenious and laborious architects, and I shall think 
myself highly honoured, if, like an under labourer, I am permitted to wait 
upon you, and to bring you some rational and Scriptural materials, that 
you may build the temple of Gospel truth with more solidity, more evan- 
gelical symmetry, and more brotherly love, than you have yet done. 

God only knows what contemptible thoughts I have of myself. It is 
better to spread them before him, than to do it before you. This only I 
will venture to say; in a thousand respects I see myself vastly infenor 
to either of you. If{f have presumed to uncover your theological sores, 
and to pour into them some tincture of myrrh and aloes, it is no proof 
that I prefer myself to you. A surgeon may open an imposthume in a 
royal breast, and believe that he understands the use of his scissors and 
probe better than the king, without entertaining the least idea of his 
being the king’s superior. If I have made a pair of Scripture Scales, 
which weigh Gospel gold better than your single scales ; it no more 
follows that I esteem myself your superior, than it follows that an artist 
who makes scales to weigh common gold esteems himself superior to the 
ministers of state, because he understands scale making better than they. 

Horace will help me to illustrate the consistency of my reproofs to 
you, with my professions of respect for you. I consider you, Zelotes, as 

Von. Il. 17 


258 EQUAL CHECK. [PART THIRD. 


a one-edged sword, which cuts down the Pharisaic error ; and you, Ho- 
nestus, as a one-edged scymetar, which hews the Antinomian mistakes 
in pieces ; but I want to see you both as the Lord’s two-edged sword; 
and I have indulged my Alpine roughness, in hopes that (through the — 

concurrence of your candour with the Divine blessing which I implore 

on these pages) you will be ground to the other edge you want. ‘This, 

ye know, cannot be done without some close rubbing; and, therefore, 

while ye glitter in the field of action, let not your displeasure arise 

against a grinding stone cut from the neighbourhood of the Alps, and 

providentially brought into a corner of your Church, where it wears 

itself away in the thankless office of grinding you both, that each of you 

may be as dreadful to Antinomianism and to Pharisaism, as the cherub’s 

“ flaming sword, which turned, and cut every way,” was terrible to the 

two first offenders. So shall ye keep the way to the tree of life in an 

evangelical manner; and instead of triumphing over you, as I go the 

dull round of my controversial labour, I shall adopt the poet’s humble 
saying :— 

Fungor vice cotis, acutum 
Reddere que ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi. 


Not that I dare to flaming zeal pretend, 

But only boast to be the Gospel’s friend ; 

To whet you both to act, and, lie the hone, 
Give others edge, though I myself have none., 


Or rather, considering what the prophet says of the impartial hand 
which weighed feasting Belshazzar, and wrote his awful doom upon the 
wall that faced him, I will pray: ‘“‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner ; 
and when I turn my face to the wall on my dying bed, let not my knees 
smite one against the other at the sight of the killing word, ‘TExex: 
thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.’ Let me not 
be ‘found wanting’ either the testimony of thy free grace, through faith, 
or the testimony of a good conscience through the works of faith. So 
shall the Spirit of thy free grace bear witness with my free-willing spirit, 
that I am a child of thine, that I have kept the faith, and that in the great 
day, when I shall be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, I shall be 
found a justified sinner, according to the anti-Pharisaic weights, which 
fill the first Scripture Scale; and a justified believer, according to the 
anti-Solifidian weights, which fill the second.” 


THE DOCTRINES 


: GRACE AND JUSTICE, 


EQUALLY 
ESSENTIAL TO THE PURE GOSPEL: 


WITH 


SOME REMARKS 


ON THE MISCHIEVOUS DIVISIONS CAUSED AMONG CHRISTIANS 
BY PARTING THOSE DOCTRINES. 


BEING 


AN INTRODUCTION TO A PLAN OF RECONCILIATION 


BETWEEN THE DEFENDERS OF THE-DOCTRINES OF PARTIAL GRACE, COMMONLY 
CALLED CALVINISTS; AND THE DEFENDERS OF THE DOCTRINES OF 
IMPARTIAL JUSTICE, COMMONLY CALLED ARMINIANS. 


a ‘neal 
| ss on a Ree 
Mt 


“algal hah, Ue ies 


THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE AND JUSTICE. 


SECTION I. 


A plain account of the Gospel in general, and of the various dispensa- 
tions into which it branches itself —The Gospel holds forth the doctrines 
of justice, as well as the doctrines of grace—An opposition to this 
capital truth gave rise to the controversy about the Minutes—An an- 
swer to an objection of those who suppose that the Gospel consists only 
of doctrines of grace. 


Ir a judicious mariner, who has sailed round the world, sees with 
pleasure and improvement a map, which exhibits, in one point of view, 
the shape and proportion of the wide seas, in crossing of which he has 
spent some years; a judicious Protestant may profitably look upon a 
doctrinal map, (if I may be allowed the expression,) which places before 
him in diminutive proportion, the windings of a controversy, which, like 
a noisy, impetuous torrent, has disturbed the Churches of Christ for 
fourteen hundred years, and carried religious desolation through the four 
parts of the globe ; but more especially if this map exhibits, with some 
degree of accuracy, the boundaries of truth, the crooked shores of the 
sea of error, the haven of peace, and the rocks rendered famous by 
the doctrinal wrecks of myriads of unwary evangelists. Without any 
apology, therefore, I shall lay before the reader a plain account of the 
primitive catholic Gospel, and its various dispensations. 

Tue Gosret, in general, is a Divine system of truth, which, with 
various degrees of evidence, points out to sinners the way of eternal 
salvation, agreeable to the mercy and justice of a holy God; and there- 
fore the Gospel, in general, is an assemblage of holy doctrines of GRacE, 
and gracious doctrines of syustice. ‘This is the idea which our Lord 
himself gives us of it, Mark xvi, 16. Jor though he speaks there of 
the peculiar Gospel dispensation, which he opened, his words may, in 
some sense, be applied to every Gospel dispensation. “Preach the 
Gosret. He that believeth [in the light of his dispensation, supposing 
he does it ‘with the heart unto righteousness’| shall be saved,” according 
to the privileges of his dispensation: here you have a holy doctrine of 
grace. “But he that believeth not shall be damned :” here you have a 
gracious doctrine of justice. For, supposing man has a gracious capa- 
cityto believe in the light of his dispensation, there is no Antinomian 
grace in the promise, and no free wrath in the threatening, which com- 
pose what our Lord calls the Gospel; but the conditional promise 
exhibits a righteous doctrine of grace, and the conditional threatening 
displays a gracious doctrine of justice. 

Tire Gosre in general branches itself out into four capital dispen- 
sations, the last of which is most eminently called the Gospel, because 
it includes and perfects all the preceding displays of God’s grace and 
justice toward mankind. Take we a view of these four dispensations, 
beginning at the lowest, viz. Gentilism. 


262 EQUAL CHECK. . [Part 


- I. Gewrrttsm, which is frequently called natural religion; and might 


with propricty be called, the Gospel of Gentiles: Gentilism, I say, is a 

dispensation of grace and justice, which St. Peter preaches and describes — 
in these words :—‘ In every nation he that feareth God, and worketh — 
righteousness [according to his light] is accepted of him.” These words — 


contain a holy doctrine of grace ; which is inseparably connected with 
this holy doctrine of justice, In every nation fe that feareth nor God, 


and worketh nor righteousness, [according'to his light,] ts Nor accepted | 


of him. 


II. Jupazsm, which is frequently called the Mosaic dispensation, or : 


the law, (that is, according to the first meaning of the Hebrew word 
noun, the doctrine, or the instruction,) and which might with propriety be 
called the Jewish Gospel: Judaism, I say, is that particular display of 
the doctrines of grace and justice, which was chiefly calculated for the 
meridian of Canaan, and is contained in the Old Testament; but espe- 
cially in the five books of Moses. The Prophet Samuel sums it all up 
in these words :—“ Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all 
your heart, [according to the law, i. e. doctrine of Moses,] for consider 
how great things he hath done for you, [his peculiar people :] but if Ye 
shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed,” 1 Sam. xii, 24. In this 


Gospel dispensation, also, the doctrine of grace goes hand in hand with — 


the doctrine of justice. Every book in the Old Testament confirms the 
truth of this assertion. ; 

III. Tue Gosret of John the Baptist, which is commonly called the 
baptism of John, in connection with the Gospel, or baptism, which the 
apostles preached, before Christ opened the glorious baptism of his own 
Spirit on the day of pentecost; this Gospel dispensation, I say, is the 
Jewish Gospel improved into infant Christianity. Or, if you please, it 
is Christianity falling short of that “indwelling power from on high,” 
which is called “the kingdom of Ged come with power.” This Gospel 
is chiefly found in the four Gospels. It clearly points out the person 
of Christ, gives us his history, holds forth his mediatorial law; and, lead. 
ing on to the perfection of Christianity, displays, with increasing light, 


(1.) The doctrines of grace, which kindly call the chief of sinners to — 


eternal salvation through the practicable means of repentance, faith, and 
obedience. And, (2.) The doctrines of justice, which awfully threatens 
sinners with destruction, if they finally neglect to repent, believe, and 
obey. 


The capital difference between this Gospel dispensation and the © 


Jewish Gospel, consists in this: the Jewish Gospel holds forth Christ 
about to come, in types and prophecies ; but this Gospel displays the ful- 
filment of the Jewish prophecies, and without a typical veil points out 
Christ already come. Again: the political part of the Jewish Gospel 
admits of some temporary indulgences, with respect to divorce, a plu- 
rality of wives, &c, which indulgences are repealed in the Christian 
institution, where morality is carried to the greatest height, and enforced 
by the strongest motives. But, on the other hand, the ceremonial part 
of the Gospel of Christ grants us many indulgences with respect to 


Sabbaths, festivals, washings, meats, places of worship, &e. For it — 


binds upon us only the two unbloody significant rites, which the Serip- 
tures call baptism and the Lord’s Supper; freeing us from shedding 


THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 263 


human blgod in circumcision; and the blood of beasts in daily sacri- 
fices ; an important freedom this, which St. Paul calls “the ceremonial 
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,” and for which he so 
strenuously contends against the Judaizing preachers, who would have 
brought his Galatian converts under the bloody yoke of circumcision 
and Jewish bondage. 

IV. The per, fect Gospel of Cunisr is frequently called rH GosPEL 

. only, on account of its “fulness, and because it contains whatever is 
excellent in the above-described Gospel dispensations. We may truly 
say, therefore, that perfect Christianity, or the complete Gospel of Christ, 
is Gentilism, Judaism, and the baptism of John, arrived at their full 
maturity. This perfected Gospel is found then, initially, in the four books, 
which bear the name of Gospels, and perfectively in the Acts of the 
Apostles and the epistles. The difference between this perfected 
Gospel and the Gospel which was preached before the day of pentecost, 
consists in this capital article :—Before that day, our Lord and his fore- 
runner, John the Baptist, foretold that Christ “should baptize with the 
Holy Ghost ;” and Christ promised the indwelling Spirit. He said, 
“He dweileth with you, and shall then be in you. Ye shall be baptized 
with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.” But the full Gospel of 
Christ takes in the full dispensation of Christ’s Spirit, as well as the full 
history of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection ; comprehending the glad 
news of the descent of the Holy Ghost, as well as the joyful tidings of 
the ascension of the Son; and therefore its distinguishing character is 
thus laid down by St. Peter, “Jesus, being by the right hand of God 
#XALTED, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy 
Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. ‘This pro- 
mise is unto you [that repent and believe.] We are his witnesses of 
these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God [since the day 
of pentecost] hath given to them that obey him:” for, before Christ’s 
ascension, the evangelists could say, “’The Holy Ghost is not yet given, 
[in its Christian fulness,] because Christ is not yet GLoririmp :” com- 
pare Acts ii, 33, &c, with Acts v, 22,-and John vii, 39. 

This Gospel is the richest display of Divine grace and justice which 
takes place among men in the present state of things. For Christ’s 
sake “the Holy Ghost is given” as an indwelling, sanctifying comforter. 
Here is the highest doctrine of grace! He is thus given “to them that 
obey ;” and of consequence he is refused to the disobedient. Here is 
the highest doctrine of justice, so far as the purpose of God, according 
to the elections of grace and justice, actually takes place in this life, 
before the second coming of Christ. These two last clauses are of 
peculiar importance. 

1. I say in this life, because, after death, two great dispensations of 
grace and justice will yet take place, with respect to every man: the 
one in the day of death, when Christ will say to each of us, “ Thou 
shalt be with me in paradise ;” or, “Thou shalt go to thy own place :” 
and the other in the day of judgment, when our Lord will add, “ Come, 
ye blessed,” or, “Go, ye cursed.” Then shall the “Gospel mystery of 
God,” which equally displays the doctrines of grace and of justice, be 
ay accomplished. 

- 1 have added the clause, before the second coming of Christ 


264 EQUAL CIIECK. [part 


because in the Psalms, Prophets, Acis, Epistles, and especiajly in the 
Revelation, we have a variety of promises, that “in the day of his dis- 
played power, Christ will come in his glory, to judge among the heathen, 
to wound even kings in the day of his wrath, to root up the wicked, to 
fill the places with their dead bodies, to smite in sunder antichrist, and 
the heads over divers countries, and to lift up his triumphant head,” on 
this very earth, where he once “ bowed his wounded head, and gave up 
the ghost :” compare Psalm cx, with Acts i, 11; 2 Thess. i, 10; Rev. 
xix, &c. In that great day, another Gospel dispensation shall take 
place. We have it now in prophecy, as the Jews had the Gospel of 
Christ’s first advent; but when Christ shall “come to destroy the 
wicked, to be actually glorified in his saints, and admired in all them 
that believe: in that day,” ministers of the Gospel shall no more pro- — 
phesy, but, speaking a plain, historical truth, they shall lift up their 
voices, as “the yoice of many waters and mighty thunderings, saying, 
Allelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; the marriage of the 
Lamb is come ; his wife [the Church of the first born] has made her- 
self ready: blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection : 
he ReIGNs with Christ a thousand years. Blessed are the meek, for 
they po inherit the earth. The times of refreshing are come, and he 
HAS seNT Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto us; whom the 
heaven pip receive” till this solemn season. But now are come “the 
times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth 
of all his holy prophets, since the world began,” Rey. xix, xx; Matt. v, 
5; Acts ili, 19, &c. May the Lord hasten this Gospel dispensation! 
And, till it take place, may “the Spirit and the bride say, Come !” 

This being premised, it will not be difficult to give the reader a just 
idea of the grand controversy which has torn the Churches of Christ, 
from the days of Augustine and Pelagius, and which has lately been 
revived among us, on the following occasion. 

In the year 1770, Mr. Wesley (in the Minutes of a conference, which 
he held with the preachers in his connection) advanced some propositions, 
the manifest tendency of which was to assert that the doctrines of justice 
are an essential part of the Gospel; and that, when we have been afraid 
to preach them, as well as the doctrines of grace, we haye been partial 
dispensers of the truth, and have leaned too much toward Calvinism ; 
that is, toward a system of doctrine, which, in a great degree, explains 
away the doctrines of justice, to make more room for the doctrines of 

race. 

; Some good people, who imagined that the doctrines of impartial jus- 
tice have little or nothing to do with the Gospel, were not only highly 
displeased with Mr. Wesley’s propositions, but very greatly alarmed at 
the word merit, which he warily used in one of them, to intimate that 
the doctrines of justice and the day of judgment must fall to the ground, 
if every kind of merit or desert is banished from the Gospel ; justice 
being a virtue which, from an impartial tribunal, “ renders to every man 
according to his works,” that is, according to his worthiness or unwor- 
thiness, or, as some express it, according to his merit or demerit. 

A regard for the doctrines of justice, and a fear lest Antinomian doc- — 
trines of grace, and dreadful doctrines of free wrath, should be still 
entertained by my friends as the genuine doctrines of grace, engaged me 


THIRD. | GRACE AND JUSTICE. 265 


to vindicate those obnoxious propositions, or rather, the doctrines of 
justice held forth there. And this, I hope, I have done in a series of 
Checks to Antinomianism, or of tracts against an unscriptural doctrine 
of grace, a doctrine of grace torn from the Scripture doctrine of justice. 
In order to rescue the doctrine of justice, I have endeavoured to prove 
that no man is born an absolute reprobate in Calvin’s sense of the word; 
that “God is loving to every man” for Christ’s sake ; and that, of con- 
sequence, there is a Gospel dispensation for every man, though it should 
be only that which is called Gentilism. I have shown the cruelty of 
those opinions which directly or indirectly doom to eternal perdition all 
the heathens, who never read the law of Moses, or heard the Gospel of 
Christ. I have evinced, by a variety of arguments, that nothing can be 
more unscriptural than to represent the law of Moses (i. e. the Jewish 
Gospel) as a graceless doctrine of justice ; and the law of Christ (or the 
Christian Gospel) as a lawless doctrine of grace. By these means I 
have defended, so far as lay in me, both the Jewish doctrines of grace 
and the Christian doctrines of justice. And by demonstrating that the 
Scripture doctrines of grace are inseparably connected with the Scrip- 
‘ture doctrines of justice, I flatter myself to have opened the way for the 
reunion of the two partial gospels of the day; the capital error of which 
consists either in excluding the doctrines of grace from the doctrines of 
justice, which is the error of all rigid free willers; or in excluding the 
doctrines of justice from the doctrines of grace, which is the mistake of 
all rigid bound willers. 

«“ What,” says one of these partial defenders of the doctrines of grace, 
“will you still persist to legalize the Gospel? Do you not know that 
the word Gosprt, in the original, means Goop news, or a GOOD message, 
and therefore must denote doctrines of grace abstracted from all the 
severity of what you call the doctrines of justice?” To this plausible 
objection, which has deluded thousands of simple souls, I answer :— 

(1.) A royal proclamation may be called a coop prociamation, though 
it does not turn the’king’s subjects into lawless favourites, and the Laws 
of the realm into rules of life, as insignificant in judgment as rules of 
grammar. And the statutes of parliament may be coop statutes, though 
they may secure the righteous punishment of offenders as well as the 
gracious privileges of loyal subjects. (2.) If the hand of God is a 
coop hand when it “ resists the proud,” as well as when it “ gives grace 
to the humble ;” and if his arm was a merciful arm when it “ overthrew 
daring Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,” as well as when it 
“made obedient Israel to pass through the midst of it,” see Psalm cxxxvi, 
why may not a message from God, which requires practical obedience, 
and is enforced by promises of gracious rewards in case of compliance, 
and by threatenings of righteous punishments in case of non-compli- 
ance ; why may not, I say, such a message be called a coop message 
or Gospel? (3.) Why should not a revelation from God be a coop 
revelation or a Gospel, when it displays the severity of his justice toward 
those who reject his gracious offers, as well as the tenderness of his 
compassion toward those who accept them; especially if we consider 
that the first intention of the denunciations of his vindictive justice is to 
excite the godly fear which endears offers of mercy to sinners, and is in 
them “the beginning of wisdom?” (4.) If, in the Old Testament, the 


266 EQUAL CHECK. ' [PaRT 


sweetest and most joyful messages of God’s grace are called Jaw ; and 
if, in the New Testament, the most terrible denunciations of indignation 
and wrath, tribulation and anguish, are called Gospel; nothing in the 
world can be more unscriptural and absurd than the Antinomian Babel 
erected by some zealous evangelists, who teach that the law of God is 
nothing but the doctrine of merciless justice; and that the Gospel of 
Christ is nothing but the doctrine of lawless grace. 

That the word Law, in the Old Testament, frequently means the 
sweetest Gospel promises, I prove, first, from these sayings of Dayid: 
“The law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and 
silver,” Psa, cxix, 72. ‘“ He hath remembered his Gospel covenant for 
ever,—which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac, 
and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law,” Psa. cy, 8, &c. Here 
the Gospel covenants made with the three chosen patriarchs, are called 
alaw. Hence it is that when Isaiah speaks of the brightest display of 
Gospel grace at the time that “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall 
be established on the top of the mountains,” he says, ‘‘ Out of Sion 
shall go forth the law,” Isa. ii, 2, 3. Agreeably to this view of things 
we read in Nehemiah, that “all the people gathered themselves together 
as one man, and spake to Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses: 
that the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law: 
that the Levites did read in the law of God distinetly, and gave the 
sense : and that all the people went their way, &c,to make great mirth, 
because they had understood the words that were declared to them: 
and there was a very great gladness,—the joy of the Lord being their 
strength,” Neh. viii, 1, 3, 8, 10, 12,17. Now, if the law, which was 
read and explained to them, contained only the impracticable sanctions 
of a merciless, thundering justice ; were not all the people out of their 
senses when they “went their way with great gladness” after hearing 
the law expounded ? 

The New Testament confirms this account of the doctrines of grace 
and justice, and of the words law and Gospel. When our Lord (who 
undoubtedly knew the exact meaning of the word Gospel) sent his dis- 
ciples to “preach the Gospel to every creature,” he charged them to 
declare, that “he who believeth not shall be damned,” as well as that 
“‘he who believeth shall be saved,” Mark xvi, 16. Whence it evidently 
appears that our Lord meant by the Gospxt the severe doctrines of jus- 
tice, as well as the comfortable doctrines of grace. 

St. Paul gives us exactly the same idea of the Gospel. In the Epistle 
to the Romans, where he contends most for the gratuitous election of 
distinguishing love, he expostulates with those who “ despise the riches 
of God’s goodness, and treasure up unto themselves wrath against the 
day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who 
will render to every man according to his deeds,—eternal life to them, 
who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory ; but indigna- 
tion and wrath to them that obey not the truth.” If you ask St. Paul 
when God will thus display his merciful goodness and tremendous jus- 
tice, he directly answers, “‘ When God shall judge the secrets of men 
according to my Gospel,” that is, according to the promises and threat- 
enings,—the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice, which 
compose the Gospel I preach, Rom. ii, 4—16. 


THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 267 


Hence it is that the apostle calls the Mosaic dispensation sometimes 
the law, and sometimes the Gospel, while he styles the Christian dispen- 
sation sometimes the law of Christ, and sometimes the Gospel of Christ. 

That St. Paul indifferently calls the Mosaic dispensation law and Gos- 
pel, is evident from the following texts: “ Every man that is circum- 
cised is a debtor to the whole law,” Gal. v, 3. Here the word law 
undoubtedly means the Mosaic dispensation. Again: “To us was the 
Gospel preached, as well as to them,” the Israelites who perished in the 
wilderness, for not believing Moses, Heb. iv, 2. Whence it follows, 
that “to ruem [the Israelites, who perished] the Gospel [i. e. the doc- 
trines of grace and justice] was preached as well as to us,” Christians, 
who are saved by obedient faith. Once more: that what Moses 
preached to them was a doctrine of grace and of justice, is evident 
from this consideration: had the Mosaic Gospel been a doctrine of 
mere justice, it could not have been a Gospel like our gracious Gospel ; 
and had it been a mere doctrine of grace, the apostle could never have 
excited us not to neglect our Christian Gospel, and great salvation, by 
poiting out to us the fearful destruction of the Israelites, who neglecte! 
their Jewish Gospel and salvation ; “lest any Christian should fall after 
the same example of unbelief,” Heb. iv, 11. 

With respect to the Christian dispensation, the apostle calls it some- 
times the law: “The doers of the law [i. e. of the preceptive part of 
the Gospel] shall be justified, when God shall judge the secrets of men 
according to my Gospel,” Rom. ii, 13, 16, compared with Matt. xu, 36, 
37. Sometimes he calls it the law of Christ : “ Bear ye one another's 
burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ,” Gal. vi, 2: sometimes the laws 
of God : “1 will write my laws [i. e. my evangelical precepts and pro- 
mises] in their hearts,” Heb. viii, 10; x, 16: sometimes the law of 
the Spirit, Rom. viii, 2: and sometimes the Gospel of Christ, Rom. 1, 
16. Hence it is that to be a Christian believer, in St. Paul’s language, 
is “to be under the law of Christ,” 1 Cor. ix, 21. As for St. James, 
he never calls the Christian dispensation Gospel ; but he simply calls it 
either the aw, James iv, 11, 12; ii, 10, the law of liberty, James ui, 12, 
or, the perfect law of het eaeda 1, 25. St. John uses the same lan- 
guage in his epistles, in which he never mentions the word Gospel, and 
in which, speaking of the sins of Christian believers, he say: S, that “sim 
is the transgression of the law ;” whence it follows, that the sin of Chris- 
tians is the ‘transgression of the law of Christ, or of the holy doctrines 
of justice preached by Jesus Christ. To deny it, would be asserting 
we cannot sin; for St. Paul informs us that the Mosaic law is done 
away, 2 Cor. ili, 11. Now, if no Christian is under the law of Moses, 
and if Christ never adopted the law of our nature, and never grafied 
the moral part of the Mosaic law into the Christian dispensation ; or, 
in other terms, if Christ’s Gospel is a lawless institution, it necessarily 
follows that no Christian can sin: for sin is not imputed or charged, 
(that is, there is no sin,) “ where there is no law,” Rom. v, 13. Hence 
it is that Antinomian doctrines of grace represent fallen, adulterous, 
bloody believers as spotless, or sinless before God, in all their sins. 
Such is the necessary consequence of a lawless Gospel armed with 
pointless “rules of life!’ Such the dreadful tendency of doctrines of 
grace torn away from the doctrines of justice. 


268 EQUAL CHECK. [PAR * 


SECTION II. 

Remarks on the two Gospel axioms, or capital truths, wpon which the 
doctrines of grace and justice are founded—Augustine himself once 
granted both those truths—Rigid Arminians indirectly deny the one, 
and rigid Calvinists the other—How the partial defenders of the 
doctrines of justice and grace try to save appearances, with respect to 
the part of the truth which they indirectly oppose. 


So noble and solid a superstructure as the Gospel, i. e. the Scripture 
doctrines of grace and justice, undoubtedly stands upon a noble and 
sure foundation. Accordingly we find that the primitive Gospel rests 
on two principles, the one theological and the other moral. These two 


principles, or, if you please, these two pillars of Gospel truth, may, for 


distinction sake, be called Gospel axioms; at least, I beg leave to call 
them so. Nor will the candid reader deny my request, if he consider 
the following definitions :— 

I. Aw axtom is a self-evident truth, which at once recommends itself 
to the understanding, or the conscience of every unprejudiced man. 
Thus, two and two make four, is an axtom in eyery counting house. 
And that “the absolute necessity of all human actions is incompatible 
with a moral law and a day of judgment,” is an axiom in every unpre- 
judiced mind. ' 

II. The two Gospel axioms are the two principles, or capital self-evi- 
dent truths, on which the primitive Gospel, that is, the Scripture doc- 
trine of grace and justice is founded. 

III. The first Gospel axiom bears up the holy doctrines of grace, 
and when it is cordially received, is equally destructive of proud Phari- 
saism and the unholy doctrines of lawless grace. This axiom is the 
following self-evident truth, which recommends itself to the mind and 
conscience of every candid Bible Christian :—“ Our first talent or de- 
gree of salvation is merely of God’s free grace in Christ, without any 
work or endeavour of our own; and our eternal salvation is originally, 
capitally,* and finallyt of Ged’s free grace in Christ; through our not 


* A Solifidian would say entirely, and by this means he would leave no room 
for the second Gospel axiom, for the rewardableness of the works of faith, and 
for the doctrine of remunerative justice. But by saying capitally, we avoid this 
threefold mistake, we secure the honour of holy free grace, and shut the door 
against its counterfeit. 

+ By adding finally, we show that the top stone, as well as the foundation 
stone of our eternal salvation, is to be brought with “‘shouting, Grace! grace! 
unto it;” because if God had honoured his obedient saints with a sight of his 
heavenly glory for half an hour, and then suffered them to fall gently asleep in 
the bosom of oblivion, or te slide into a state of personal non-existence, he would 
have demonstrated his remunerative justice, and amply rewarded their best ser- 
vices. Hence it appears that Gcod’s giving eternal rewards of glory for a few 
temporary services, done by his own grace, is such an instance of free grace as 
nothing but eternal shouts of ‘Grace! grace!” can sufficiently acknowledge. 
We desire our mistaken brethren to consider this remark ; otherwise they will 
wrong the truth and us, by continuing to say that our doctrines of grace allow 
indeed free grace to lay the foundation, but that they reserve to the works of our 
rectified free will the honour of bringing the top stone of our eternal salvation, 
with saying, ‘‘ Works! works! unto it:” a Pharisaic doctrine this, which we 
abhor; loudly asserting that although our free, nnnecessitated obedience of faith 
intervenes, yet God in Christ is the Omega as well as the Alpha,—the end, as 
well as the beginning, of our eternal salvation. 


THIRD. | ’ GRACE AND JUSTICE. 269 


neglecting that first talent or degree of salvation. I say through our 
not neglecting, &c, to secure the connection of the two Gospel axioms, 
and to leave Scripture room for the doctrines of remunerative justice. 

IV. The second Gospel axiom bears up the doctrines of justice, and 
extirpates the doctrine of free wrath. It is the following proposition, 
which, I believe, no candid Bible Christian will deny :— Our eternal 
damnation is originally* and principally of our own personal free will, 
through an obstinate and final neglect of the first talent or degree of 
salvation.” 

These two Gospel axioms may be thus expressed: (1.) Our salva- 
tion is of God: or, there is free grace in God, which, through Christ, 
freely places all men in a state of temporary redemption, justification, or 
salvation, according to various Gospel dispensations, and crowns those 
who are faithful unto death with an eternal redemption, justification, o1 
salvation. (2.) Our damnation is of ourselves : or, there is free will in 
man, by which he may, through the grace freely imparted to him in the 
day of temporary salvation, work out his own eternal salvation: or he 
may, through the natural power which angels had to sin in heaven, and 
our first parents in paradise, choose to sin away the day of temporary sal- 
vation. And by thus working out his damnation, he may provoke just 
wrath, which is the same as despised free grace, to punish him with 
eternal destruction. 

These two truths, or axioms, might be made still plainer, thus : (1.) Our 
gracious and just God, in a day of salvation begun, sets life or death 
before us. (2.) As free-willing, assisted creatures, we may, during that 
day, choose which we please : we may “ stretch out our hand to the water, 
or to the fire.” Or thus: (1.) There is holy, righteous, and partial free 
grace in God. (2.) There is free will in redeemed, assisted man, 
whereby he is capable of obeying or disobeying God’s holy, righteous, 
and partial free grace. For conveniency’s sake, these axioms may be 
shortened thus: (1.) The doctrine of holy free grace and partial mercy 
in God is true. (2.) The doctrine of rectified, assisted free will in man, 
and of impartial justice in God, is true also. 

This lovely pair of evangelical propositions appears to me so essential 
to the fulness and harmony of the Gospel, that I believe if Pelagius 
and Augustine themselves were alive, neither of them would dare 
directly to rise against it. Time, or envy, has destroyed the works of 
Pelagius, the great asserter of free will and the doctrines of justice ; we 
cannot therefore support the doctrines of free grace by his concessions : 
but we have the writings of Augustine, the great defender of God’s dis- 
tinguishing love, and the doctrine of free grace ; and yet, partial as he 
was to these doctrines, in a happy moment, he boldly stood up for free 


* Tadd the word originally, to cut off the self-excusing opinion of those men 
who charge their eternal damnation upon an absolute decree of reprobation, or 
upon Adam’s first transgression. As for the word principally, it secures the part 
in the damnation of the wicked, which the Scriptures ascribe to the righteous 
God : it being certain, (1.) That God judicially hardens his slothful and unpro- 
fitable servants, by taking from them, at the end of their day of grace, the talent 
of softening grace, which they have obstinately buried. And, (2.) That he judi- 
cially reprobates or damns them, by pronouncing this awful sentence, ‘ Depart, 
cursed,” &c. A flame-of vindictive justice belongs to the Gospel of Christ, 

eb. xii, 29, but not a single spark of free wrath. 


870 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


will and the doctrines of justice. This appears from the judicious and 
candid questions which he proposes in one of his epistles:—Si non 
est gratia Dei, quomodo salvat mundum? Si non est liberum arbitrium, 
quomodo judicat mundum? If there be not free grace in God, how does 
he graciously save the world? If there be not free will 7x men, how does 
he righteously judge the world?” ; 

To conclude: whoever holds forth these two Bible axioms, “‘ There 
is free grace in God, whence man’s salvation graciously flows in various 
degrees ;” and, ‘“‘ There is free will in every man, whence the damnation of 
all that perish justly proceeds :” whoever, I say, consistently holds forth 
these two self-evident propositions, is, in my humble judgment, a Gos- 
pel minister, who “rightly divides the word of truth.” He is a friend 
to both the doctrines of partial grace and impartial justice, of mercy and 
obedience, of faith and good works: in short, he preaches the primitive 
Gospel, reunites the two opposite gospels of the day, and equally obviates 
the errors of Honestus and Zelotes, who stand up for these modern 
gospels. 

If you ask what those errors are, I answer, as follows :—Honestus, 
the Pelagian, seldom preaches free grace, and never dwells upon the 
absolute sovereignty with which God at first distributes the various 
talents of his grace : and when he preaches free will, he seldom preaches 
free will initially rectified and continually assisted by free grace ; rarely, 
if ever, deeply humbling his hearers by displaying the total helplessness 
of unrectified and unassisted free will: and thus he veils the delightful 
doctrine of God’s free grace, clouds the evangelical doctrine of man’s 
free will, and inadvertently opens the door to self-conceited Pharisaism. 
On the other hand, Zelotes, the Solifidian, or ngid Calvinist, seldom or 
never'preaches rectified, assisted free will; he harps only on the doc- 
trines of absolute necessity ; and when he preaches free grace, he too 
often preaches, (1.) A cruel free grace, which turning itself into free 
wrath, with respect to a majority of mankind, absolutely passes them by, 
and consigns them over to everlasting, infallible damnation, by means of 
necessary, foreordained sin ; and, (2.) An unscriptural free grace, which 
turning itself into lawless fondness, with respect to a number of favourite 
souls, absolutely insures to them eternal redemption, complete justifica- 
tion, and finished salvation, be they ever so unfaithful. 

By these means Zelotes spoils the doctrine of free grace, undesign- 

edly injures the doctrine of holiness, and utterly destroys the doctrine of 
justice. For when he denies that the greatest part of mankind have any 
‘materest in God’s redeeming love ; when he intimates that the doctrines 
-of an absolute, necessitating election to eternal life are true; and that 
‘God’s reprobates are not less necessitated to sin to the end and be 
damned, than God’s elect are to obey to the end and be saved; does he 
“not pour contempt upon the throne of Divine justice 1 Does he not make 
‘the supreme Judge, who fills that throne, appear as unwise when he 
distributes heavenly rewards, as cruel, when he inflicts infernal punish- 
«ments 1 

Honestus and Zelotes will probably think that I misrepresent them. 
‘Honestus will say that he cordially believes God is full of free grace for - 
all men, and that he only thinks it would be unjust in God to be partial 
in the distribution of his free grace. But when Honestus reasons thus, 


THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 271 


does he not confound grace and justice? Does he not sap the founda- 
tion of the throne of grace, under pretence of establishing the throne of 
justice ? If God cannot do what he pleases with his grace, and if jus- 
tice always binds him in the distribution of his favours, does not his 
grace deserve the name of impartial justice, far better than the appellation 
of free grace ? 

As Honestus tries to saye appearances with regard to the doctrines 
of grace, so does Zelotes with regard to the doctrines of justice. “The 
Gospel I preach,” says he, “is highly consistent with the doctrines of 
justice. I indeed intimate that the elect are necessitated to believe and 
be eternally saved; and the reprobates to continue in sin and be lost: 
but both this salvation of the elect, and damnation of the reprobates, per- 
fectly agree with Divine equity. For Christ, by his obedience unto 
death, merited the eternal salvation of all that shall be saved: and * 
Adam, by his first act of disobedience, deserved the absolute reproba- 
tion of all that shall be damned. Our doctrines of grace are therefore 
highly consistent with the doctrines of justice.” This argument appears 
unanswerable to Zelotes: but I confess it does not satisfy me. For 
if the doctrine of absolute necessity be thus foisted into the Gospel, and 
if Christ make his elect people absolutely and unavoidably willing to 
obey and go to heaven, while Adam makes his reprobate people abso- 
lutely and unavoidably willing to sin and go to hell; I should be glad to 
know how the elect can be wisely judged according to, and rewarded 
for their faith and good works; and how the reprobates can be justly 
sentenced according to, and punished for their unbelief and bad works. 
I repeat it, the doctrine of absolute predestination to life or death eternal, 
which is one and the same with the doctrine of an absolute necessity to 
believe or disbelieve, to obey or disobey, to the last,—such a doctrine, 
I say, is totally subversive of the doctrines of justice. For reason de- 
poses that it is absurd to give to necessary agents a law, or rule of life, 
armed with promises of reward, and threatenings of punishment. And 
conscience declares that it is unjust and cruel to inflict fearful, eternal 
punishments upon beings that have only moved or acted by absolute 
necessity : whether such beings are running streams, aspiring flames, fall- 
ing stones, turning wheels, mad men, bound thinkers, bound willers, or 
bound agents ; supposing such bound thinkers, bound willers, and bound 
agents, did think, will, and act, as unavoidably as the wind raises a 
storm, and as necessarily as a fired cannon pours forth flames and 
destruction. Absolute necessity and a righteous judgment are ab- 
solutely incompatible. We must renounce the mistakes of rigid Cal- 
vinists, or give up the doctrines of justice. 


SECTION III. 

By whom chiefly the Gospel axioms were systematically parted ; and under 
what pretences prejudiced, good men tore asunder the doctrines of grace 
and justice ; and rent the one primitive, catholic Gospel, into the two 
partial gospels of the day. 

From the preceding section it appears, that to preach the Gospel in 
its primitive purity, is so to hold forth and balance the two Gospel axioms 


272 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


as to allow both the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice the 
place which is assigned them in the word of God: it is so to preach 


holy free grace, and rectified, assisted free will, as equally to grind — 


Pharisaism and Antinomianism (the graceless and the lawless gospel) 


between these two evangelical mill stones. And thus the Gospel was, 
in general, preached by good men for above three hundred years after — 


Christ’s ascension. If ever the tempter put successfully in practice his 
two capital maxims, “ Confound and destroy,—Divide and conquer,” it 
was in the fourth century, when he helped Pelagius and Augustine, two 
warm disputants, openly to confound what should have been properly 
distinguished, and systematically to divide what should have been re- 
ligiously joined ; by which means they broke the balance of the doctrines 
of grace and justice. Nor did they do it out of malice ; but through an 
’ immoderate regard for one part of the Gospel; an injudicious regard 
this, which was naturally productive of a proportionable disregard for the 
other part of God’s word. 

Pelagius (we are told by Augustine) preached free will; but, con- 
founding natural free will with free will rectified and assisted by grace, 
he made too much of natural free will, and too little of God’s free grace. 
The left leg of his Gospel system grew gigantic, while the right leg 
shrunk almost to nothing. And, commencing a rigid free willer, he 
insisted upon the sufficiency of our natural powers, and dwelt on the 
second Gospel axiom, and the doctrines of justice in so partial a manner, 
that he almost eclipsed the first Gospel axiom and the doctrines of grace. 

Augustine, his cotemporary, under pretence of mending the matter, 
was guilty of an error exactly contrary. He so puffed up the right leg 
of his Gospel system, as to make it monstrous; while the left grew as 
slender and insignificant as a rotten stick. To bring this unhappy 
change about, in his controversial heats he confounded lawful, righteous 
free grace, with lawless, unscriptural, overbearing free grace; and, to 
make room for this latter, imaginary sort of grace, he sometimes turned 
free will out of its place, to give that place to necessity. Thus he com- 
menced a rigid bound willer. The irresistible free grace, which he 


preached, bound the elect by the chains of an unconditional election to — 


life, absolutely necessitating them to repent, believe, and be eternall 

saved: while the irresistible free wrath, which secretly advanced behind 
that overbearing grace, bound the non-elect in chains of absolute repro- 
bation, and necessitated them to continue in sin, and be unavoidably 


damned. By these means, new, unholy doctrines of grace and wrath — 


jostled the holy, ancient doctrines of grace and justice out of their place. 
The two Gospel axioms did no longer agree; but the first axiom, be- 
coming like Leviathan, swallowed up the second. For the moment 
irresistible, lawless free grace, and despotic, cruel free wrath, mount the 
throne, what room is there for holy, righteous free grace? What room 
for free will? What room for the doctrines of justice? What room for 
the primitive Gospel? Absolutely none; unless it be a narrow room 
indeed, artfully contrived under a heap of Augustinian contradictions, 
and Calvinian inconsistencies. 


From this short account of Pelagianism and Augustinianism, it is 


evident that heated Pelagius (if the account given us be true) gave a 
desperate thrust to the right side of primitive Christianity; and that 


THIRD. | GRACE AND JUSTICE. 273 


heated Augustine, in his hurry to defend her, aimed a well-meant blow 
at Pelagius, but by overdoing it, and missing his mark, wounded the left 
side of the heavenly woman, who from that time has lain bleeding 
between these two rash antagonists. “The beginning of strife is as 
when one letteth out water,” says the wise man. These “waters of 
strife,” which Pelagius and Augustine let in upon the Church, by break- 
ing the flood gates of Gospel truth, soon overflowed the Christian world, 
and at times, like the waters of the overflowing Nile, have almost beer 
turned into blood. When streams of self-justifying, rigid, Pelagian free 
will, have met’ with streams’ of self-electing, lawless, Augustinian free 
grace, the strife has been loud and terrible. They have foamed out 
their own shame, and frighted thousands of persons, travelling to Sion, 
out of the noisy ways of a corrupted gospel, into the more quiet paths 
of infidelity. 

For above a thousand years these “waters of strife” have spread 
devastation through the Christian world ; I had almost said also through 
the Mohammedan world: for Mohammed, who collected the filth of | 
corrupt Christianity, derived these errors into his system of religion : 
Omar and Hali, at least, two of his relations and successors, became the 
leaders of two sects, which divide the Mohammedan world. Omar, 
whom the Turks follow, stood up for bound will, necessity, and a species 
of absolute Augustinian predestination. And Hali, whom the Persians 
revere, embraced rigid free will and Pelagian free agency. But the 
worst is, that these muddy waters have flowed through the dirty channel 
of the Romish Church, into all the Protestant Churches, and have at 
times deluged them ; turning, wherever they came, brotherly love into 
fierce contention. For, breaking the evangelical balance of the Gospel 
axioms is as naturally productive of polemical debates in the Church, 
as breaking the parliamentary balance between the king and the people 
is of contention and civil wars in the state. How the plague first infected 
Protestantism will be seen in the next section. 


SECTION IV. 


Luther and Calvin do not restore the balance of the Gospel axioms—- 
That honour was reserved for Cranmer, the English reformer, who 
modelled the Church of England very nearly according to the primitive 
Gospel—How soon the Augustinian doctrines of lawless grace. pre- 
ponderated—How the Pelagian doctrine of unassisted free will now 
preponderates. 


Wauen the first reformers shook off the yoke of Papistical trumperies. 
they fought gallantly for many glorious truths. But it is to be wished, 
that while they warmly contended for the simple, Scriptural dress of the 
primitive Gospel, they had not forgotten to fight for some of its very 
vitals, I mean the doctrines of holy free grace, and rectified, assisted free 
will. ‘They did much good in many respects ; so much indeed, that no 
grateful Protestant can find fault with them without reluctance. But, 
after all, they did not restore the balance of the doctrines of grace and 

justice. Luther, the German reformer, being a monk of the order of 

Vox. II. 18 


274 EQUAL CHECK. ‘ [parr 


Augustine, entered upon the reformation full of prejudices in favour of 
Augustine’s Solifidian mistakes. And he was so busy in opposing the 
pope of Rome, his indulgences, Latin masses, and other monastic fool. 
eries, that he did not find time to oppose the Augustinian fooleries of 
fatalism, Manichean necessity, lawless grace, and free wrath. On the 
contrary, in one of his heats, he broke the left scale of the Gospel 
balances, denied there was any such thing as free will, and by that 
means gave a most destructive blow to the doctrines of justice: a rash 
dend, for which Erasmus, the Dutch reformer, openly reproved him, but 
with too much of the Pelagian spirit. 

Calvin, the French reformer, who, after he had left his native country, 
taught divinity in the academy of Geneva, far from getting light, and 
learning moderation by the controversy of Luther and Erasmus, rushed 
with all the impetuosity of his ardent spirit into the error of heated Au. 
gustine, and so zealously maintained it, that, from that time, it has been 
called Calvinism. i 

If Calvin did not grow wiser by the dispute of Luther and Erasmus, 
Melancthon, another German reformer, did; and our great English 
reformer, Cranmer, who in wisdom, candour, and moderation, far 
exceeded the generality of the reformers on the continent, closely imi- 
tated his excellent example. Nay, to the honour of this favoured island, 
and of perfect Protestantism, in a happy moment he found the exact 
balance of the Gospel axioms. Read, admire, and obey his anti-Augus- 
tinian, anti-Pelagian, and apostolic proclamation. “ All men be also to 
be monished, and chiefly preachers, that, in this high matter, they, look- 
ing on both sides, [i. e. looking both to the doctrines of grace and the 
doctrines of justice] so attemper and moderate themselves, that neither 
they so preach the grace of God, [with heated Augustine] that they take 
away thereby free will, nor on the other side so extol free will, [with 
heated Pelagius,] that injury be done to the grace of God.” (Erud. of 
a Christian Man, sec. on free will, which was added by Cranmer.) Here 
you see the balance of the doctrines of grace and justice, which Augus- 
tine and Pelagius had broken, and which Luther and Calvin had ground 
to dust in some of their overdoing moments,—you see, I say, that impor- 
tant balance perfectly restored by the English reformer. With this short 


valuable quotation, as with a shield of impenetrable brass, all men, and ~ 


chiefly preachers, may quench all the fiery darts cast at the primitive 


Gospel by the preachers of the partial gospels of the day ; I mean the ~ 


abettors of the Augustinian or of the Pelagian error. 


Mankind are prone to run into extremes. The world is full of men — 
who always overdo or underdo. Few people ever find the line of mo- | 


deration, the golden mean; and of those who do, few stay long upon it. 
One blast or another of vain doctrine soon drives them east or west from the 
meridian of pure truth. How happy would it have been for the Church of 


“of the ancient saints. These good men, finding that his doctrine was 


iy 
; 
England if her first members had steadily followed the light which our | 
great reformers carried before them. But alas, not a few of them had | 
more zeal than moderation. Cranmer could not make all his fellow | 
reformers to see with his eyes. In the time of their popish superstition — 
many of them had deeply imbibed the errors of St Augustine, whom the — 
Church of Rome reveres as the greatest of the fathers, and the holiest — 


2 


THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 275 


countenanced by Luther, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Bucer, and others, whom 
they look upon as oracles, soon relapsed into the Augustinian doctrines 
of lawless grace, from which some of them had never been quite disen- 
tangled. Even during Cranmer’s confinement (but much more after his 
martyrdom) they began to renounce the doctrines of justice, which were 
only indirectly secured in the seventeenth article of our Church; warmly 
contending for the doctrines of necessitating grace, which are always 
destructive of the doctrines of justice. ‘Thus, while some of them erected 
the canopy of a lawless, Solifidian free grace over some men, elected 
according to Calvin’s notion of an absolute election to eternal life ; others 
cast the sable net of free wrath over the rest of mankind ; imagining that 
from all eternity most men were absolutely predestinated to eternal 
death, according to the Calvinian doctrine of absolute, unconditional 
reprobation. ‘Thus the balance of the Gospel axioms, which Cranmer 
(considering the times) had maintained to admiration, was again broken. 
Rigid Calvinism got the ascendancy ; the doctrines of justice were pub- 
licly decried as popery and heresy, almost all England over. All the 
reprobates were exculpated. By the doctrine of necessity, their una- 
voidable continuance in sin, and their damnation, were openly charged 
upon God and Adam. Decrees of absolute predestination to necessary 
holiness and eternal salvation, and statutes of absolute appomtment to 
necessary sin and eternal damnation began currently to pass for Gospel. 
And the doctrines of justice were swept away, as if they had been poi- 
sonous cobwebs spun by popish spiders. Hence it is that the Rev. Mr. 
Toplady, describing the triumphs of rigid Calvinism in the days of Queen 
Elizabeth, says, in his letter to Dr. Nowell, p. 45, that “those who 
held this opinion of God’s not being any cause of sin and damnation, 
were at that time mightily cried out against by the main body of our 
Reformed Church, as fautors of false religion,” and “that to be called 
a free-will man, was looked upon as a shameful reproach, and oppro- 
brious infamy; yea, and that a person so termed was deemed heretical.” 
A proof this, that Dr. Peter Heylin speaks the truth when he says, “ It 
was safer for any man in those times to have been looked upon as a hea- 
then or publican, than an anti-Calvinist.” 

Should the judicious reader ask how it happened that the doctrines of 
unscriptural grace, free wrath, and necessity were so soon substituted for 
the doctrines of genuine free grace, and rectified, assisted free will, whic. 
Cranmer had so evangelically maintained ; I answer, that although Thomas 
Aquinas and Scotus, the leading divines of the Church of Rome, through 
their great veneration for Augustine, leaned too much toward the lawless, 
wrathful doctrines of grace; yet Luther, Calvin, and Zuinglius leaned 
still more toward that extreme. This was soon observed by some of 
the popish doctors ; and as they knew not how to make a proper stand 
against the genuine doctrines of the reformation, they were glad to find 
a good opportunity of opposing the reformers, by opposing the Augusti- 
nian mistakes which Luther and Calvin carried to the height. Accord- 
ingly, leaving the extreme of Augustine, to which they had chiefly 
leaned before, many of the popish divines began to lean toward the 
extreme of Pelagius, and commenced rigid and partial defenders of the 
doctrines of justice, which the German, French, and Swiss reformers 
had indirectly destroyed, by overthrowing the doctrine of free will, which 


276 EQUAL CHECK. [Parr 


is inseparably connected with the doctrine of a day of just judgment. 
Hence it is, that, at the council of Trent, which the pope had called to 
stop the progress of the reformation, the Papists took openly the part of 
the second Gospel axiom; and in the spirit of contradiction began 
warmly to oppose Augustine’s mistakes, which the first Jesuits had 
ardently embraced, Bellarmine himself not excepted. Party spirit soon 
blew up the partial zeal of the contending divines. Protestant bigotry 
ran against popish bigotry ; and the effect of the shock was a driving 
of each other still farther from the line of Scripture moderation. Thus 
many Papists, especially those who wrote against the Calvinian Protest- 
ants, became the partial supporters of the doctrines of justice, while 
their opponents showed themselves the partial vindicators of the doctrines 
of grace. Hence it is, that, in the popish countries, those who stood up 
for faith and distinguishing free grace began to be called hereties, Luther- 
ans, and Solifidians: while, in the Protestant countries, those who had 
the courage to maintain the doctrines of justice, good works, and unne- 
cessitated obedience, were branded as Papists, merit mongers, and 
heretics. 

Things continued in this unhappy state till oppressed truth made new 
efforts to shake off the yokes put upon her. For the scales, which 
hold the weights of the sanctuary, (the two Gospel axioms,) hover and 
shift till they have attained their equilibrium; just as the disturbed 
needle of a compass quivers and moves till it has recovered its proper 
situation, and points again due north. This new shifting happened in the 
last century, when Arminius, a Protestant divine, endeavoured to rescue 
the doctrines of justice, which were openly trampled under foot by most 
Protestants ; and when Jansenius, a popish bishop, attempted to exalt 
the doctrines of distinguishing grace, which most divines of the Church 
of Rome had of late left to the Protestants. Thus Jansenius, overdoing 
after Augustine, brought the doctrines of unscriptural grace and free 
wrath with a full tide into the Church of Rome: while Arminius (or, at 
least, some of his followers) drove them with all his might out of the 
Protestant Churches. 

Many countries were in a general ferment on this occasion. A great 


number of Protestant divines, assembled at Dort in Holland, confirmed . 


Calvin’s indirect opposition to the doctrines of justice, and condemned 
Arminius after his death ; for during his life none dared to attack him ; 
such was the reputation he had, even through Holland, both for learning 
and exemplary piety! On the other hand, the pope, with his conclave, 
imitating the partiality of the synod of Dort, injudiciously condemned 
Jansenius and his Calvinism, and thus did an injury to the doctrines of 
grace, which Jansenius warmly contended for. But truth shall stand, 
be it ever so much opposed by either partial Protestants or partial 
Papists. Therefore, notwithstanding the decisions of the popish con- 
clave, Jansenism and the doctrines of grace continued to leaven the 
Church of Rome: while, notwithstanding the decisions of the Protestant 
synod, Arminianism and the doctrines of justice continued to spread 
through the Protestant Churches. 

Archbishop Laud, in the days of King James and Charles the First, 
caused in the Gospel scales the turn which then began to take place in 
our Church in favour of the doctrines of justice. He was the chief 


THIRD.] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 277 


instrument, which, like Moses’ rod, began to part the boisterous sea of 
rigid Calvinism. He received his light from Arminius: but it was cor- 
rupted by a mixture of Pelagian darkness. He aimed rather at putting 
down absolute reprobation and lawless grace, than at clearing up the 
Scripture doctrine of a partial election, doing justice to the doctrines of 
grace, and reconciling the contending parties, by reconciling the two 
Gospel axioms. Hence, passing beyond the Scripture meridian, he led 
most of the English clergy from one extreme to the other. For now it 
is to be feared that the generality of them are gone as far west as they 
were before east, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The first Gospel 
axiom formerly preponderated, and now the second goes swiftly down. 
Free will is, in general, cried up in opposition to free grace, as exces- 
sively and Pelagianistically (if I may use the expression) as, in the 
beginning of the last century free grace was unreasonably and Calvin- 
istically set up in opposition to free will. I say in general, because 
although most of our pulpits are filled with preachers, who Pelagianize 
as well as Honestus, there are still a few divines, who, like Zelotes, 
strongly run into the Calvinian extreme. 

But however, sooner or later, judicious, moderate men will convince 
the Christian world that the Gospel equally comprises the doctrines of 
grace and of justice; and that it consists of promises to be believed, 
and precepts to be observed; gracious promises and holy precepts, 
which are armed with the sanction of proper rewards or punishments, 
and are as incompatible with Pelagian self sufficiency, as with the 
Calvinian doctrines of lawless grace and free wrath. And as soon as 
this is clearly and practically understood by Christians, primitive unity 
and harmony will be restored to the partial gospels of the day. 


SECTION V. 


What the two modern gospels are—Their dreadful consequences—Ar- 
minius tried to find the way of truth between these two gospels, but 
perhaps missed it a little—The rectifying of his mistakes lately at- 
tempted. 


By the two modern gospels, I mean Pelagianism or rigid Arminianism, 
and the doctrine of absolute necessity or rigid Calvinism. The former 
is a gospel which so exalts the doctrines of justice, as to obscure the 
doctrines of partial grace: a gospel which so holds forth, the second 
Gospel axiom, as to hide the glory of the first, either wholly or in part. 
Rigid Calvinism, on the other hand, is a gospel which so extols the doc- 
trines of distinguishing grace, as to eclipse the doctrines of justice: a 
gospel which so holds forth the first Gospel axiom as to hide the glory 
of the ‘second, in whole or in part. The fault of these two systems of 
doctrine consists in parting, or in not properly balancing the doctrines 
of grace and of justice. 

The confusion which this error has occasioned in the Churches of Christ 
for above a thousand years should, one would think, have opened the eyes 
of all overdoing and underdoing divines, and made them look out for a safe 
passage between the Pelagian and the Calvinian rocks. That any good 


278 EQUAL CHECK. [Part 


men should continue unconcernedly to run the bark of their orthodoxy 
against those fatal rocks of error, is really astonishing ; especially if we 
consider that nobody can look into ecclesiastical history without 

the marks of the numerous wrecks of truth and love which they have, 
caused. Wide, however, as the empire of prejudice is, candour is not 
yet turned out of the world. In all the Churches of Christ, there are 
men who will yet hear Scripture and reason. But many of them, 
through a variety of avocations, through an indolence of disposition, or 
through despair of finding the exact truth, tamely submit to what appears 
to them a remediless evil. They are sorry that Christians should be so 
divided : but not seeing any prospect of ending our deplorable divisions, ~ 
they quietly walk in Pelagian or Calvinian ways, without seeking the 
unbeaten path of truth which lies exactly between those two frequented 
roads. One of the reasons why they take up so readily with the Pela- 
gian or Calvinian system, is, their not considering the dreadful evils 
which flow from each, some of which I shall set before the reader. I 
have already observed that the error of Pelagius (if St. Augustine and 
his votaries: do not wrong him) consists in exalting free will and human 
powers, so as to leave little or no room for the exertion of free grace 
and Divine power ; and that, on the other hand, the error of Augustine ~ 
and Calvin consists in so exalting irresistible free grace openly, and 
irresistible free wrath secretly, that there is no reasonable room left for 
the exertion of faithful or unfaithful free will, or indeed for any free will 
at all. Now in the very nature of things, these two opposite extremes 
lead to the most dangerous errors. I begin with enumerating those 
which belong to the Pelagian extreme. 

Reason and experience show that when the Pelagian error rises to its 
height, it leads men into Arianism, Socinianism, Deism, and, sometimes, 
into avowed fatalism, or popish Pharisaism. 

1. By Artanism I mean the doctrine of Arius, a divine of Alex. 
andria, who lived about the time of Pelagius, and not only insinuated 
that man was not so fallen as to need an omnipotent Redeemer, whose 
name is “God with us;” but openly taught that Christ was only an 
exalted, super-angelical creature. 

2. Socrnranism is the error of Socinus, a learned, moral man, who 
lived since the reformation, and had such high notions of man’s free will 
and powers, that he thought man could save himself, even without the 
help of a super-angelical Redeemer. And accordingly he asserted that 
Christ was a mere man like Moses and Elias, and that his blood had no 
more power to atone for sin, than that of Abel or St. Paul. 

3. Drism is the error of those who carry matters still higher, and 
think that man is so perfectly able, by the exertions of his own mere 
free will and natural powers, to recommend himself to the mercy of the 
Supreme Being, that he needs no Redeemer at all. Hence it is, that, 
although the Deists still believe in God, and on that account assume the 
name of Theists or Deists, they make no more of Christ and the Bible, 
than of the pope and his mass book, and look upon the doctrines of the - 
incarnation and the trinity as wild and idolatrous conceits. 

4, AvoweED FaTaLiso is the error of those who believe that “ whatever 
is, is right ;” and that all things happen (and of consequence that all sins 
are committed) of fatal, absolute necessity. This is an error into which 


oe gy 


see ee 


THIRD. | GRACE AND JUSTICE. 279 


immoral Deists are very apt to run: for, when they feel guilt upon their 
consciences, as they have no idea of a Mediator to take it away, they 
wish that their bad actions had been necessary, that is, absolutely brought 
on by the stars, or caused by God’s decrees, which would fully exculpate 
them. And as this doctrine eases their guilty consciences, they first 
desire that it may be true, and by little and little persuade themselves 
that it is so, and publicly maintain their error. Hence it is that immoral 
Deists, such as Voltaire, and many of his followers, are avowed fatalists. 

5. Jewish Puarisatsm is the error of those who are such strangers 
to the doctrines of grace, as to think they have no need of the rich mercy 
which God extends to poor publicans. Fancying themselves righteous, 
they thank God for their supposed goodness, when they, should smite 
upon their breasts on account of their real depravity. Porisu Puarisaism 
is an error still more capital. Those who are deep in it not only take 
little notice of the doctrines of grace, but carry their ideas of -the doc- 
trines of justice to such unscriptural and absurd lengths as to imagine 
that their penances can make a proper atonement for their sins; that 
God is, strictly speaking, their debtor on account of their good works: 
and that they can not only merit the reward of eternal life for themselves 
‘by their good deeds, but deserve it also for others by their works of 
supererogation, and through their superabundant obedience and goodness ; 
a conceit so detestable, that one would think it need only be mentioned 
to be fully exploded and perfectly abhorred. 

Dreadful as are these consequences of Pelagianism carried to its 
height, the consequences of Augustinianism, or Calvinism, carried also 
to its height, are not at all better. For the demolition of free will, and 
the setting up of irresistible, electing free grace, and absolute, reprobating 
free wrath, lead to Antinomianism, Manicheism, disguised fatalism, widely 
reprobating bigotry, and self-electing presumption or self-reprobating de- 
spair. ‘The four first of these errors need explanation. 

I. Anrrvomtanism is the error of such rigid Calvinists as exalt free 
grace in so injudicious a manner, and make so little account of free will, 
and its startings aside out of the way of duty, as to represent sin, at times, 
like a mere bugbear, which can no more hurt the believer, who now 
commits it, than scarecrows can hurt those who set them up. They 
assert that if a simmer has once believed, he is not only safe, but eternally 
and completely justified from all future as well as past iniquities. The 
pope’s indulgences are nothing to those which these mistaken evangelists 
preach. I have heard of a bishop of Rome who extended his popish 
indulgences, pardons, and justifications, to any crime which the indulged 
man might commit within ten years after date: but these preached 
finished salvation in the full extent of the word, without any of our own 
works, and by that means they extend their Protestant indulgences to 
all eternity—to all believers in general—and to every crime which each 
of them might choose tocommit. In a word, they preach the inamissible, 
complete justification of all fallen believers, who add murder to adultery, 
and a hypocritical show of godliness to incest. Antinomianism, after all, 
is nothiug but rigid Calvinism dragged to open light by plain-spoken 
preachers, who think that truth can bear the light, and that no honest 
man should be ashamed of his religion. 

II. Manicueism is the capital error of Manes, a Persian, who, 


280 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


attempting to mend the Gospel of Christ, demolished free will, made 
man a mere passive tool, and taught that there are two principles in the 
Godhead, the one good, from which flows all the good, and the other 
bad, from which flows all the evil in the world. Augustine was once a 
Manichee, but afterward he left their sect, and refuted their errors. 
And yet, astonishing ! when he began to lean to the doctrine of absolute 
predestination, he ran again, unawares, into the capital error of Manes. 
For if all the good and bad actions of angels, devils, and men, have their 
source in God’s absolute predestination, and necessitating decrees, it 
follows that vice absolutely springs from the predestinating God, as well 
as virtue; and, of consequence, that rigid Calvinism is a branch of 
Manicheism,artfully painted with fair colours borrowed from Christianity. 

UI. Discursep raratism is nothing but an absolute necessity of doing 
good or evil, according to the overbearing decrees, or forcible influences 
of Manes’ God, who is made up of free grace and of free wrath, that is, 


of a good and bad principle. I call this doctrine disguised fatalism : 


(1.) Because it implies the absolute necessity of our actions ; a necessity 
this, which the heathens called fate: and, (2.) Because it is so horrible, 
that even those who are most in love with it, dare not look at it without 
some veil, or disguise. As the words fatalism, evil god, good devil, or 
Manichean deity, are not in the Bible, the Christian fatalists do what 
they can to cover their error with decent expressions. The good prin- 
ciple of their Deity they accordingly call free grace, or everlasting, 
unchangeable love. From this good principle flow their absolute election 
and finished salvation. With respect to the bad principle, it is true they 
dare not openly call it free wrath, or everlasting, unchangeable hatred, 
as:the honest Manichees did; but they give you dreadful hints that it is 
a sovereign something in the Godhead, which necessitates reprobated 
angels and men to sin ; something which ordains their fall, and absolutely 
passes them by when they are fallen; something which marks out 
unformed, unbegotten victims for the slaughter, and says to them, 
according to unchangeable decrees productive of absolute necessity, 
“Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire; for I passed you by: my 
absolute reprobation eternally secured your sin, and your continuance 
in sin; and now, my unchangeable, everlasting wrath absolutely secures 
your eternal damnation. Go, ye absolutely reprobated wretches,—go, 
and glorify my free wrath, which flamed against you before the founda- 
tion of the world. My curses and reprobation are without repentance.” 
There is not a grain of equity in all this speech: and yet it agrees as 
truly with rigid Calvinism as with the above-described branch of Mani- 
cheism ; it falls in as exactly with the necessitating, good-bad principles 
of Manes, as with the necessitating, good-bad principle of lawless free 
grace, and absolute sovereignty—the softer name which some Gospel 
ministers decently give to free wrath. 

ITV. Wipety REPROBATING BIGOTRY is the peculiar sin of the men 
who make so much of the doctrines of partial grace, as to pay little or 
no attention to the doctrines of impartial justice. ‘This detestable sin 
was so deeply rooted in the breasts of the Jews, that our Lord found 


himself obliged to work a miracle, that he might not be destroyed by it © 


before his hour was come. Because the Jews were the peculiar, and 
elected people of God, they uncharitably concluded that all the heathens, 


THIRD. |] GRACE AND JUSTICE. 281 


i. e. all the rest of mankind were absolutely reprobated, or at least that 
God would show them no mercy, unless they became proselytes of the 
gate, and directly or indirectly embraced Judaism. And therefore, when 
Christ told them that many Gentiles would come from the east and west, 
and sit with Abraham in the kingdom of God, while many of the Jews 
would be cast out; and when he reproved their bigotry, by reminding 
them that in the days of Elijah God was more gracious to a heathen 
widow, than to all the widows that dwelt in Judea, they flew into a rage, 
and attempted to throw him down from the top of the craggy hill on 
which the town of Nazareth was built. It is the same widely reprobating 
bigotry, which makes the rigid Romanists think that there is no salvation 
out of their Church. Hence also the rigid Calvinists imagine that there 
is no saying grace but for those who share in their election of grace. 
It is impossible to conceive what bad tempers, fierce zeal, and bloody 
persecutions this reprobating bigotry has caused in all the Churches and 
nations where the privileges of electing love have been carried beyond 
the Scripture mark. Let us with candour read the history of the 
Churches and people who have engrossed to themselves all the saving 
grace of God, and we shall cry out, From such a fierce election, and 
such reprobating bigotry, good Lord deliver us! , 

I make no doubt but this sketch of the dangerous errors to which 
rigid Pelagianism and rigid Calvinism lead unwary Christians, will make 
the judicious reader afraid of these partial gospels, and will increase his 
thankfulness to God for the primitive Gospel, which by its doctrines of 
grace guards us against rigid Pelagianism and its mischievous effects ; 
and, by its doctrines of justice, arms us against rigid Calvinism and its 
dangerous consequences. 

Among the divines abroad, who have endeavoured to steer their 
doctrinal course between the Pelagian shelves and the Augustinian rocks, 
and who have tried to follow the reconciling plan of our great reformer 
Cranmer, none is more famous, and none came nearer the truth than 
Arminius. He was a pious and judicious Dutch minister, who, in the 
beginning of the last century, taught divinity in the university of Leyden 
-in Holiand. He made some noble efforts to drive Manicheism and 
disguised fatalism out of the Protestant Church, of which he was a 
member; and, so far as his light and influence extended, (by proving 
the evangelical union of redeeming grace and free will,) he restored 
Scripture harmony to the Gospel, and carried on the plan of recon- 
ciliation which Cranmer had laid down. His sermons, lectures, and 
orations made many ashamed of absolute reprobation, and the bad- 
principled God, who was before quietly worshipped all over Holland. 
Nevertheless, his attempt was partly unsuccessful ; for, attacking free 
wrath, (or the bad principle of the Manichean god,) without setting free 
grace in its full Gospel light, and without properly granting the election 
of grace which St. Paul contends for, he gave the Calvinists just room to 
complain. ‘They availed themselves so skilfully of his embarrassment 
about the doctrine of election, and they pleaded so plausibly for the 
sovereignty of the good-principled God, as to keep their absolute repro- 
bation, and the sovereignty of the bad-principled God partly out of sight. 
In short, implacable free wrath escaped by means of Antinomian free 
grace. The venomous scorpion concealed itself under the wing of the 


282 EQUAL CHECK. [part 


simple dove ; and the double-principled Deity, the sparingly electing and 


widely reprobating God, was still held forth to injudicious Protestants 
as the God of all grace, the God of love, the God in whom is no 


darkness at all. For, as I have already observed, a number of divines, 


after the heart of Calvin, assembled at Dort in Holland, and openly 
condemned there the efforts that Arminius had made to reconcile the 
doctrines of justice and the doctrines of grace: the clergy who had 
espoused his sentiments were deprived of their livings; he himself was 
represented as the author of a heresy almost as dangerous as that of 
Pelagius ; and from that time the rigid Calvinists have considered all 


those who stand up for the two Gospel axioms with any degree of con- 


sistency, as semi-Pelagian, or Arminian heretics. 
And if Mr. Bayle be not mistaken, the Calvinists did not complain of 


Arminius’ doctrine altogether without reason; for although he went — 


very far in his discovery of the passage between the Pelagian and the 


Augustinian rocks, yet he did not sail quite through. Election proved a — 
rock on which his doctrinal bark stuck fast; nor could he ever get — 


entirely clear of that difficulty. 
Among our English divines several have greatly distinguished themselves 
by their improvements upon Arminius’ discoveries, Bishop Ovyeral, Bishop 


Stillingfleet, Bishop Bull, Chillingworth, Baxter, Whitby, and others. — 


But if I am not mistaken, they have all stuck where Arminius did, or on 
the opposite rock. And thereabouts we stuck too, when Mr. Wesley 
got happily clear of a point of the Calvinian rock which had retarded 


our course, and (so far as he appeared by us to be governed by the Father — 


of lights) we began to sail on with him through the straits of truth. 
When we left our moorings, the partial defenders of the doctrmes of 
grace hung out a signal of distress, and cried to us that our doctrinal 
ark was going to be lost against the same cliff where Pelagius’ bark went 
to pieces. Their shouts have made us wary. ‘The Lord has, we humbly 
hope, blessed us with an anchor of patient hope, a gale of cheerful love 
of truth, and a shield of resignation to quench the fiery darts which some 
warm men, who defend the barren rock of absolute reprobation, have 
thrown at us in our passage. We have sounded our way as we went 
on; and looking steadily to our theological compass, the Scriptures, to 


the Sun of righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the stars which _ 
he holds in his right hand, the apostles and true evangelists, after sailing — 


slowly six years through straits, where strong currents of error and hard 


gales of prejudice have often retarded our progress, we flatter ourselves’ — 


that we have got quite out of those narrow and rocky seas, where most 


divines have been stopped for a long succession of ages. If we are — 


not mistaken, the ancient haven of Gospel truth is in sight; and, while 
we enter in, [ take a sketch of it, which the reader will see in a Plan 
of Reconciliation between the Calvinists and Arminians, which these 
sheets are designed to introduce. 


THE RECONCILIATION: 


OR 


AN EASY METHOD 


TO 
UNITE THE PROFESSING PEOPLE OF GOD. 


BY PLACING THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE AND JUSTICE IN SUCH A LIGHT AS TO 
MAKE THE CANDID ARMINIANS BIBLE CALVINISTS, AND THE CANDID 
CALVINISTS BIBLE ARMINIANS. 


Vestra solum legitis; vestra amatis ; ceteros, incognita causa, condemnatis.—CICER9. 

‘Follow peace with all men. Look not every man on his own things[and favourite doctrines 
only ;] but every man also on the things|and favourite doctrines] of others.” ‘ The wisdom 
that is from above is peaceable, and without partiality,” Heb. xii, 14; Phil. ii, 4; James 
iii 17 . 


sR 


Ory 


*T 


‘ 


THE RECONCILIATION, &c. 


SECTION I. 


The sad consequences of the divisions of those who make a peculiar 
profession of faith in Christ—It is unscriptural and absurd to object 
that believers can never be of one mind and heart. 


UnsPeakaste isthe mischief done to the interests of religion by the 
divisions of Christians: and the greater their profession is, the greater 
is the offence given by their contests. When the men who seek occa- 
sion against the Gospel, see them contending for the truth, and never 
- coming to an agreement, they ask, like Pilate, “ What is truth?” and 

| he away from Christianity, as that precipitate judge did from 


Of all the controversies which have given offence to the world, none 
has been kept up with more obstinacy than that which relates to Divine 
- grace and the nature of the Gospel. It was set on foot in the fourth 
century by Augustine and Pelagius, and has since been warmly carried 
on by Godeschalchus, Calvin, Arminius, and others. And it has lately 
been revived by Mr. Whitefield, and Mr. Wesley, and by the author of 
Pietas Oxoniensis, and the orator of the university of Oxford. This 
unhappy controversy has brought more contempt upon the Gospel for 
aboye twelve hundred years, than can well be conceived. Preachers 
entangled therein, instead of agreeing to build the temple of God, think 
themselves obliged to pull down the scaffolds on which their brethren 
work. Shepherds, who should join their forces to oppose the common 
enemy, militate against théir fellow shepherds: and their hungry fol- 
lowers are too frequently fed with controversial chaff, when they should 
be nourished with the pure milk of the word. After the example of 
their leaders, the sheep learn to butt, and wounds or lameness are the 
consequences of the general debate. ‘The weak are offended, and the 
lame turned out of the way. The godly mourn, and the wicked triumph: 
bad tempers are fomented; the hellish flame of party zeal is blown up, 
and the souls of the contenders are pierced through with many sorrows. 

This is not all: the Spirit of God is grieved, and the conversion of 
sinners prevented. How universally would the work of reformation 
have spread if it had not been hindered by this growing mischief! How 
many thousands of scoffers daily say, Can these devotees expect we 
should agree with them, when they cannot agree among themselves? 
And indeed how can we reasonably hope that they should give us the 
right hand of fellowship, if we cannot give it one another? “ By this,” 
saith our Lord, “shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye 
love one another.” Continual disputes are destructive of love ; and the 
men of the world, seeing us cherish such disputes, naturally conclude 
that we are not the disciples of Christ, that there are none in the world, 
that the Gospel is only a pious fraud or a fine legend, and that faith is 
nothing but fancy, superstition, or enthusiasm. 

Nor wil] such men be prevailed upon cordially to believe in Christ, 


286 EQUAL CHECK. _ [parr 


till they see the generality of professors “made perfect in one,” by 
agreeing in doctrine, and “walking in love.” We may infer this from 
our Lord’s prayer for his Church: “Neither pray I for these alone 
but for them also who shall believe on me through their word: tha 
they all may BE ong, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they 
also may be one in us: that THE WoRLD MAY BELIEVE,” John xvii, 20, 
21. Christ intimates, in these words, the men of the world will never 
generally embrace the Gospel, till the union he prayed for take place 
among believers. 'To keep up divisions, therefore, is one of the most 
effectual methods to hinder the conversion of sinners, and strengthen the 
unbelief which hardens their hearts. 

The destructive nature of this sin appears from the severity with which 
St. Paul wrote to the. Corinthians and Galatians, who were divided 
among themselves. The former he could not acknowledge as “ spi 
ritual men,” but called them “carnal,” and affirmed that “to their 
shame, some of them had not the knowledge of God.” And the latte 
he considered as persons almost “ fallen from Christ ;” intimating, that 
if they continued to “ bite each other,” (an expression which is beauti- 
fully descriptive of the malignity, with which most controyertists speak 
and write against their antagonists,) they would “be consumed one of 
another,” Gal. vin 5d . 

In families and civil societies divisions are truly deplorable ; but in the 
Churches of Christ they are peculiarly pernicious and scandalous: (1.) 
Pernicious : to be persuaded of it, we need only consider these awful words 
of St. James :—*“ If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory 
not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom is devilish. For where 
envying and strife i is, there is confusion and every evil work,” James iii, 
14, &e. (2.) Scandalous: if Christ be the Prince of Peace, why 
should his subjects be sons of-contention? If he came to reconcile 
Jews and Gentiles, “by breaking down the middle wall of partition be- 
tween them ;” if he “made in himself, of twain [of those two opposed — 
bodies of men] one new man,” that is, one new body of men, “all of 
one heart and cf one soul;” if he has “slain the enmity, so making 
peace ;” if “it pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto himself 
by him ;” and if “in the dispensation of the fulness of times [the Chris- 
tian dispensation] he gathers together all things in him :” if this, I say, 
is the case, what can be more contrary to the Gospel plan than the ob 
stinacy with which some Protestants refuse to be “ gathered together” 
with their fellow Protestants, under the shadow of their Redeemer’s 
wings? And what can be more scandalous than for Christ’s followers, — 
yea, for the strictest of them to spend their time in building “middle 
walls of partition” between themselves and their brethren, or in “daub. — 
ing over with untempered mortar” the walls which mistaken men have 
built in former ages ! 

Many Jews refused to be saved by Christ, because he came to save — 
the Gentiles as well as themselves. And it is to be feared that some | 
Christians, from a similar motive, refuse the Divine favour, or the emi- | 
nent degrees of it, to which they are called in the Gospel. Christ says — 
to these bigots, « How often would I have gathered you together, as a | 
hen gathers her scattered brood under her wings! but ye would not:” | 
ye were afraid of your Calvinian or Arminian brethren, and preferred 

+ 


. 


‘THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. 287 


the selfish heat of party spirit, to the diffusive warmth of Divine and 
brotherly love. I say Divine, as well as brotherly love; for he “that 
loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, 
whom he hath not seen ?” 

My regard for unity revives my drooping spirits, and adds new 
strength to my wasted body.* I stop at the brink of the grave over 
which I bend: and, as the blood, oozing from my decayed lungs, does 
not permit me vocally to address my contending brethren, by means 
of my pen I will ask them if they can properly receive the holy com- 
munion while they wilfully remain in disunion with their brethren from 
whom controversy has needlessly parted them? For my part, if I felt 
myself unwilling to, be reconciled on Scripture terms, either with my 
Calvinian or Arminian neighbours, I would no more dare go to the 
Lord’s table, than if I had harboured murder in my heart; and this 
scripture would daily haunt my conscience, “ Whosoever shall say to 
his brother, Thou fool, [thou silly free willer, thou foolish bound willer, 
thou heretic !] shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if thou bring 
thy gift before the altar, and there rememberest that thy [Calvinian or 
Arminian] brother hath aught against thee; leave thy gift and go thy 


way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy 


gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly”—thy religious as well as 
thy civil adversary—him with whom thou differest about the gold of 
the word ; as well as him with whom thou contendest about the gold of 
this world. 

Not to be reconciled when we properly may, is to keep up divisions ; 
and to keep up divisions is as bad as to cause them. And what a dread- 
ful thing it is to cause divisions, appears from St. Paul’s charge to the 
Romans: “I beseech you, brethren, mark them who cause divisions 
and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid 
them,” Rom. xvi, 17. Avoid them, for those who have the itch of con- 
tention, and the plague of party spirit, are not only in a dangerous case 
themselves; but they carry about a mortal infection, which they fre- 
quently communicate to others. 

Should party men exclaim against my reconciling attempt, and say 
that “there always were, and always will be divisions among the children 
of God, and that to aim at a general reconciliation, is to aim at an ab- 
solute impossibility ;” I reply,— 

(1.) This plea countenances the lusts of the flesh. “ Walk in the 
Spirit,” saith St. Paul, “and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh :” 
and among these lusts he immediately numbers “ debate, emulations, 
wrath, contentions, and such like,” observing, at the same time, that 
“the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, gentleness, meekness,” &c. 
Now when party men insinuate that we can never live in peace and 
harmony with our Christian brethren, do they not indirectly teach that 
“ debate, emulations, contentions, and such like, must” still waste our 
time, disturb our minds, and impair our love? And is not this an under- 
hand plea for a wretched obligation to neglect “the fruit of the Spirit,” 
and for an Antinomian necessity to bring forth the “ fruit of the flesh ?” 

(2.) It militates against St. Paul’s conflict for believers: “I would,” 


* Mr. Fletcher was judged to be now in the last stage of a consumption 


288 EQUAL CHECK. . [PART 


* 


says he to the Colossians, “that ye knew what great conflict I have for 
you, for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face 
in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted; being knit together 
in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the 
acknowledgment of the mystery of God,” Col. ii, 1, 2. It opposes also 


the end of the apostle’s prayer for the Romans: “The God of patience — 


and consolation grant you to be like minded, &e, that you may with one 
mind and one mouth glorify God, &c. Wherefore receive you one ano- 
ther, as Christ also received us,” Rom. xv, 5, &c. But what is far worse, 


it directly contradicts Christ’s capital prayer, which I have already — 


quoted: “TI pray,” says he, “that they [believers] may be one, as thou, 
Father, art in me, and I in thee : that they also may be one in us: that 
they may be one, even as we are one: I in them and thou in me, that 
they may be made perfect in one: that the [unbelieving] world may 
know that thou hast sent me,” John xvii, 20, &c. Now if our Lord 
asked for an absolute impossiblity, when he asked for the perfect union 
of believers in this life, where was his wisdom? And if he cannot make 
us one in heart and mind (supposing we are willing to abide by his 
reconciling word) where is his power! : 
(3.) It strikes at the authority of these evangelical entreaties, exhor- 
tations, and commands :—*“ Be of the same mind,” Rom. xii, 16. “I 
beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye 
all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you ; but 
that ye be perfectly jomed together in the same mind, and in the same 
judgment,” 1 Cor. i, 10. “Finally, brethren, be perfect, be of good 
comfort, be of one mind ; live in peace, and the God of love and peace 
shall be with you,” 2 Cor. xii, 11. “Let your conversation be as it 
becometh the Gospel of Christ: that I may hear ye, stand fast in one 
spirit, with one mind; striving together for the faith of the Gospel. 
Fulfil ye my joy that ye be like minded—being of one accord, of one 
mind. I beseech Euodias and Syntyche, that they be of the same mind 
in the Lord,” Phil. i, 27; i, 2; iv, 2. “Finally, be ye all of one 
mind, &c. Love as brethren, be courteous. For he that will see good 
days, &c, let him seek peace [with his enemies, much more with his 
brethren ;] and let him pursue it,” 1 Pet. in, 8, &c. ‘ Let us walk by 
the same tule, let us mind the same things,” Phil. ill, 16. “ With all 
lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in 
love : endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 
For there is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope 
of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father 
of all,” Eph. iv, 2, &c. The same apostle, writing to the divided 
Corinthians, tries to reconcile them by comparing again the body of 
believers to the human body, and drawing a suitable inference: “‘ The 
body is one,” says he, “though it hath many members; that there 
should be no schism, [no division] in the body; but that the members 
should have the same care one for another; all suffering when one 
member suffers, and all rejoicing when one member is honoured,” 1 
Cor. xii, 12-26. Hence it follows that to plead for the continuance 


of schisms and divisions in Christ’s mystical body, is evidently to plead — 


for a breach of “the bond of peace,” and for the neglect of all the 
above-mentioned apostolic injunctions. 


THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. 289 


(4.) It gives the lie to the following promises of the God of truth. 
“The hatred to Ephraim shall depart, &c. Ephraim shall not envy 
Judah, neither shall Judah vex Ephraim,” Isa. xi, 18. “I will give 
them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the 
good of them and of their children,” Jer. xxxii, 39. “I will give them | 
one heart, and [ will put a new spirit within them,” Ezek. xi, 19. «I 
will turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the 
name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent, &c. Other sheep I 
have, which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they 
shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd,” 
John x, 16. 

(5.) It contradicts the following accounts of God’s faithfulness in the 
initial accomplishment of the preceding promises :—“They were all 
with one accord in one place; continuing daily with one accord in the 
temple,” Acts ii, 1, 46. “The multitude of them that believed were of 
one heart, and of one soul,” Aéts iv, 32. “If we walk in the light, &c, 
we have fellowship one with another. For he that loveth his brother 
abideth in the light, and there is in him no occasion of stumbling :” no- 
thing in his heart will either cause or keep up divisions, 1 John i, 7; 
ii,10. ‘ We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, because 
your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all 
toward each other aboundeth,” 2 Thess. i, 3. “By one Spirit, ‘all 
complete Christians are baptized into one body, whether they be Jews or 
Gentiles, whether they be bond or free; and have been all made to 
drink into one Spirit”—the Spirit of truth and love ; and (unless they 
leave their first love as the Corinthians did) they sweetly continue 
to “‘ keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” 1 Cor. xii, 13; 
Eph. iv, 3. From these accounts of the unity of the primitive Chris- 
tians before they “left their first love,” I infer, that unity is attainable 
because it was attained. The arm of the Lord is not shortened ; “the 
same Lord over all zs rich unto all that call upon him ;” and if we be not 
obstinately bent upon despising the “wisdom from above, which is 
peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of good fruits and without 
partiality ;” we shall find that “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace 
of them that make peace ;” and we shall evidence that all the sincere 
followers of Christ can yet “ continue steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine 
and fellowship,” instead of perversely continuing in their own mistakes 
and in the spirit of discord. 

Lastly : the objection I answer has a tendency to stop the growth of 
Christ’s mystical body, and opposes God’s grand design in sending the 
Gospel: for “he gave apostles, evangelists, and pastors, for the per- 
fecting of the saints, and the edifying of the body of Christ ; till all come, 
in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto 
a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ : 
that we be no more carried about with every wind of doctrine, &c, but 
speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is 
the head, even Christ ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together, 
and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the 
effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the 
body, unto the edifying of itself in love,” Eph. iv, 11,17. No believer 
can, I think, candidly read these words of the apostle, without being 

Vou. Il. 19 


290 EQUAL CHECK. . _ [Part 


convinced that union and growth are inseparable in the Church of “ Christ, 
from whom all the body, by joints and bands haying nourishment [or 
help] ministered, and being knit together, increaseth with the increase 
of God,” Col. ii, 19. walt 

From these observations, I hope, it appears, that whether we consider 
the earnest entreaties of the apostles; their conflicts and pious wishes 
for their converts; the wisdom of our Lord’s address to his Father for 
the union of believers; the repeated commands of the Gospel to be of 
“one mind and one judgment ;” the promises which God has made to 
help us to keep these commands; the Divine power, by which the 
primitive believers were actually enabled to keep them, so long as they 
walked in the Spirit; or whether we consider the end of evangelical 
preaching, and the unity and growth of Christ’s mystical body ; nothing 
can be more unscriptural than to say that believers can never be again 
of one heart and of one mind. 


And as this notion is unscriptural, so it is irrational; inasmuch as it _ 


supposes that the children of God can never agree to serve him, as the 
children of the wicked one do to honour their master; for St. John 
informs us that “these have one mind to give their power and strength 
unto the beast,” Rev. xvii, 13. And experience daily teaches that when 
the men of the world are embarked in the same scheme, they can 
perfectly agree in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, and fame, or in the 
performance of duty. If ships that sail under the command of the same 
admiral do not give each other a broadside, because they have different 
captains, and are employed in different services ; if soldiers, who follow 
the same general, do not quarrel because they belong to different regi- 
ments, because their coats are not turned up alike, or because they do 
not defend the same fort, fight in the same wing of the army, hear the 
same drum, and follow the same pair of colours: and if the king’s faithful 
servants can unanimously promote his interests, and cheerfully lend each 
other a helping hand, though their departments are as different as the 
fleet is different from the army, is it not absurd to suppose that Christ’s 
faithful soldiers and servants, who are the meekest, the humblest, the 
most disinterested, and the most loving of all men, can never live in 
perfect union, and sweetly agree to pfomote the interests of their Divi 
Master? I conclude, therefore, that the objection which supposes the 
contrary, is not less contrary to reason than to the word of God. 


SECTION II. 


“Pious, moderate Calvinists, and pious, moderate Arminians in particular, 
may be easily reconciled to each other ; because the doctrines of grace 
and justice, about which they divide, are equally Scriptural, and each 

party contends for a capital part of the Gospel truth; their grand 
mistake consisting in a groundless supposition that the part of the truth 
they defend is incompatible with the part which is defended by their 
brethren. 


Som persons will probably make a more plausible objection than that 
which is answered in the preceding pages. They will urge, “ that truth 


THIRD.] bd THE RECONCILIATION. 291 


should never be sacrificed to love and peace; that the Calvinists and 
the Arminians holding doctrines diametrically opposite, one party at least 
must be totally in the wrong; and as the other party ought not to be 
reconciled to error, the agreement I propose is impossible: it will never 
take place, unless the Calvinists can be prevailed upon to give up un- 
conditional election, and their favourite doctrines of partial grace; or 
the Arminians can be persuaded to part with conditional election, and 
their fayourite doctrines of impartial justice ; and as this is too great a 
sacrifice to be expected from either party, it is in vain to attempt bringing 
about a reconciliation between them.” 

This objection is weighty: but far from discouraging me, it affords 
me an oppertunity of laying before my readers the ground of hope I 
entertain, to reconcile the Calvinists and Arminians. I should indeed 
utterly despair of effecting it, were I obliged to prove that either party 
is entirely in the wrong. But I may without folly expect some suctess, 
because my grand design is to demonstrate that both parties have an 
important truth on their side ; both holding opposite doctrines, which are 
as essential to the fulness of Christ’s Gospel, as the two eyes, nostrils, 
and cheeks, which compose our faces, are essential to the completeness 
of human beauty. 

“The language of Scripture seems to favour the one as well as the 
other,” says Dr. Watts on a similar occasion: “but this is the mischief 
that ariseth between Christians who differ in their sentiments or expres- 
sion of things ; they imagine that while one is true, the other must needs 
be false : and then they brand each other with error and heresy : whereas, 
if they would but attend to Scripture, that would show them to be both 
in the right, by its different explication of their own forms of speaking. 
In this way of reconciliation I cannot but hope for some success, because 
it falls m with the universal, fond esteem that each man has of his own 
understanding : it proves that two warm disputers may both have truth 
on their side. Now, if ten persons differ in their sentiments, it is much 
easier to persuade all of them that they may be all in the right, than it 
is to convince one that he is in the wrong.” 

I shall illustrate this quotation by a remark, which occurs in the be- 

inning of my Scripture Scales ;*only taking the liberty of applying to 
Goous Calvinists and pious Arminians what I said there of pious Solifidians 
and pious moralists :—“'The cause of their misunderstanding is singular. 
They are good men upon the whole; therefore they never can oppose 
truth as truth: and as they are not destitute of charity, they cannot 
quarrel merely for quarreling’s sake. Whence then spring their con- 
tinual disputes? Is it not from inattention and partiality? They will not 
look truth full in the face: determined to stand on one side of her, they 
seldom see above one half of her beauty. The rigid Calvinians gaze 
upon her side face on the right hand, and the rigid Arminians contemplate 
it on the left. But her unprejudiced lovers, humbly sitting at her feet, 
and beholding her in full, admire the exquisite proportion of all her 
features: a peculiar advantage this, which her partial admirers can 
never have in their present unfavourable position.” 

To be more explicit: a rigid Calvinist has no eyes but for God’s 
sovereignty, unconditional election, and the doctrines of partial grace ; 
while a rigid Arminian considers nothing but God’s equity, conditional 


292 : EQUAL CHECK. e ‘parr 


election, and the doctrines of impartial justice. And therefore, to unite 
these contending rivals, you need only prevail on the Arminians to bow 
to God’s sovereignty, to acknowledge an unconditional election, and to 
receive the doctrines of partial grace ; and as soon as they do this, they 


will be reconciled to Bible Calvinism and to all moderate Calvinists. - 


And, on the other hand, if the Calvinists can be convinced that they 
should bow to God’s equity, acknowledge a conditional election, and 
receive the doctrines of impartial justice, they will be reconciled to 
Bible Arminianism, and to all moderate Arminians. Should it be said 
that it is impossible to convince the Arminians of the truth of an uncon- 
ditional election, &c, and that the Calvinists will never receive the 
doctrine of a. conditional election, &c, I answer, that bigots of either 
party will not be convinced, because they all pretend to infallibility, 
though they do not pretend to wear a triple crown. But the candid, on 
both sides of the question, lie open to conviction, and will, I hope, yield 
to the force of plain Scripture and sound reason, the two weapons with 
which I design to attack their prejudices. 

But before I open my friendly attack, I beg leave, candid reader, to 
show thee the ground on which I will erect my Scriptural and rational 
batteries. It is made up of the following reasonable propositions :— 

When good men warmly contend about truth, you may in general 
be assured that, if truth can be compared to a staff, each party has one 
end of the staff, and that to have the whole you need only consistently 
hold together what they inconsiderately pull asunder. (2.) The Gospel 
contains doctrines of partial grace and unconditional election, as well as 
doctvines of impartial justice and conditional election. Nor can wo 
embrace the whole truth of the Gospel, unless we consistently hold those 
seemingly contrary doctrines. (3.) Those opposite doctrines, which 
rigid Calvinists and Arminians suppose to be absolutely incompatible, 
agree as well together as the following pair cf propositions : God has 
a throne of grace and a throne of justice ; ; nor is the former throne 
inconsistent with the latter. God, as the Creator and Governor of 
mankind, sustains the double character of sovereign Benefactor, and 
righteous Judge: and the first of these characters is perfectly con- 


sistent with the second. This is the ground of my reconciling plan 


and this ground is so solid,that I hardly think any unprejudiced person 
will ever enter his protest against it. Were divines to do it, they would 
render themselves as ridiculous as a pilot, who should suppose that the 
head and stern of the vessel he is called to conduct, can never be two 
essential parts of the same ship. 

If Christianity were compared to a ship, the doctrines of grace might 
be likened to the fore part, and the doctrines of justice to the hinder 
part of it. This observation brings to my remembrance a quotation 
from Dr. Doddridge, which will help the reader to understand how it is 
possible that an election of grace, maintained by moderate Calvinists, 
and an election of justice, defended by moderate Arminians, may both 
be true: “I have long observed,” says the judicious doctor, “ that 
Christians of different parties have eagerly been laying hold on par. 
ticular parts of the system of Divine truths, and have been contending 
about them as if each had been all; or as if the separation of the mem. 
bers from each other, and from the head, were the preservation of tls 


4 
. 
4 


THIRD.] THE RECONCILIATION. © 293 


body, instead of its destruction. They have been zealous to espouse 
the defence, and to maintain the honour and usefulness of each part ; 
whereas their honour as well as usefulness seems to me to lie much in 
their connection : and suspicions have often arisen between the respective 
defenders of each, which have appeared as unreasonable and absurd 
as if all the preparations for securing one part of a ship in a storm,.s 
were to be censured as a contrivance to sink the rest.” In the name 
of God, the God of wisdom, truth, and peace, let then the defenders of 
the doctrines of grace cease to fall out with the defenders of the doctrines 
of justice, and let both parties seek the happy connection which Dr. 
Doddridge speaks of, and rejoice in the part of the truth peculiarly held 
by their brethren, as well as in that part of the Gospel to which they 
have hitherto been peculiarly attached. 

Many good men, on both sides of the question, have at times pointed 
out the connection of the opposite doctrines, which are maintained in 
these sheets. Mr. Henry, a judicious Calvinist, does it in his notes on 
the parable of the talents, where he contends for the doctrines of partial 
grace and impartial justice, and exalts God both as a sovereign Bene- 
factor, and a righteous Judge. Commenting upon these words, “Take 
therefore the talent from him” [the slothful servant] says he, “ The 
talents were first disposed of by the master as an absolute owner, [that 
is, a sovereign benefactor, who does what he pleases with his own.] 
But this was now disposed of by him as a judge; he takes it from the 
unfaithful servant to punish him, and gives it to him that was eminently 
faithful to reward him.” This is “rightly dividing the word of truth,” 
and wisely distinguishing between the throne of grace and that of 
justice. 

Dr. John Heylin, a judicious Arminian, in his discourse on 1 Tim. 
iv, 10, is as candid as Mr. Henry in the above-quoted note ; for he stands 
up for God’s sovereignty and the doctrine of partial grace, as much as 
Mr. Henry does for God’s equity and the doctrine of impartial justice. 
After pointing out in strong terms the error of those who, by setting 
aside the doctrines of justice, “sap* the foundation of all religion, which 
is the moral character of the Deity,” he adds :— 

“Nor, on the other hand, dot they less offend against the natural 
prerogative, I mean the absolute sovereignty of God, who deny him the 
free exercise of his bounty, as they seem too much inclined to do who 
are backward to believe the great disparity among mankind with regard 
to a future state, which revelation always supposes. His mercy is over 
all his works, but that mercy abounds to some much more than to others, 
according to the inscrutable ‘counsel of his own will.’ Nor is there 
a shadow of injustice in such wnequal distribution of his favours. ‘The 
term favours implies freedom in bestowing them; else they were not 
favours, but debts. The almighty Maker is master of all his pro- 
ductions. Both matter and form are his: all is gift, all is bounty ; nor 
may the lizard complain of his size, because there are crocodiles ; nor is 
the worm injured by the creation of an eagle.” 

I shall conclude this section by producing the sentiments of two 
persons, whose authority is infinitely greater than that of Mr. Henry and 


* He means the rigid Calvinists. + He means the rigid Arminians, 


294 . EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


Dr. Heylin. Who exceeds St. Paul in orthodoxy? And yet what Cal- 
Vinist ever maintained the doctrines of grace more strongly than he does? 
“ By the grace of God,” says he, “I am what I am,” 1 Cor. xv, 10. 
“ By grace you are saved [that is, admitted into the high state of 
Christian salvation] through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the 
«gift of God :” [a special gift, which God has kept back from far the 
greatest part of the world ;] “ not of works, lest any man should boast,” 
Eph. ii, 8.“ At this time also there is a remnant according to the 
election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works, other- 
wise grace is no moré grace,” Rom. xi, 5,6. Not by works of 
righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved 
us,” or made us partakers of the glorious privileges of Christians, which 
he has denied to millions of the human race,” Tit. ii, 5. “He is the 
Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe ;” for he saves 
«Christians with” a special salvation, which is called “the great salva- 
tion,” 1 Tim. iv, 10; Heb. iii, 3. Christ indeed “is not the propitiation 
for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world,” 1 John ii, 2. 
Nevertheless, he is especially our Mediator, our passover or paschal 
Lamb, and “the High Priest of our Christian profession, in whom God 
hath chosen us Christians before the foundation of the world, that we 
should be holy” above all people: ‘having predestimated us unto the 
adoption of children by Jesus Christ, to the praise of the glory of his 
grace :” a high adoption, which is so superior to that to which the Jews 
had been predestinated in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, that St. 
Paul spends part of his Epistle to the Ephesians in asserting the honour 
of it, and in extolling the glory of the peculiar grace given unto us in 
Christ. And if you exclaim against this Divine partiality, the apostle - 
silences you by a just appeal to God’s sovereignty: see Rom. ix, 20. 
But was St. Paul Calvinistically partial? Did he so contend for the 
doctrines of grace, as to cast a veil over the doctrines of justice? Stands 
he not up for the latter, as boldly as he does for the former? What 
Arminian ever bowed before the throne of Divine justice more deeply 
than he does in the following scriptures? “God is not unrighteous to 
forget your work and labour of love,” Heb. vi, 10. “I have fought 
the good fight, &c. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that 
day, 2 Tim. iv, 7, 8. These passages strongly support the doctrines 
of justice, but those which follow may be considered as the yery summit 
of Scripture Arminianism. ‘ Knowing that whatsoever good thing any 
man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord,” Eph. vi, 8. “ What- 
soever ye do, do it heartily, &c, knowing that of the Lord ye shall 
receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. 
But he that does wrong shall receive [adequate punishment] for the 
wrong which he hath done,” Col. ili, 23, &@c. “We must all appear 
before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the 
things done in his body, according to that which he hath done, whether 
it be good or bad,” 2 Cor. v, 10. “In the day of wrath and revelation 
of his righteous ‘judgment, God will render to every man according to 
his deeds; eternal life to them who, by patient continuance in well 
doing, seek for glory, honour, and immortality ; but indignation and wrath 
to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey un- 


> 
THIRD. |] THE RECONCILIATION. 295 


righteousness, &e ; for [before the throne of justice] there is no respect 
of persons with God, ” Rom. li, 5, &c. 

Should it be asked how these seemingly contrary doctrines of grace 
and justice can be reconciled, I reply, They agree as perfectly to- 
gether as the first and second advent of our Lord. At his first coming 
he sustained the gracious character of a Saviour; and at his second 
coming he will sustain the righteous character of a J udge. Hear him 
explaining the mystery, which is hid from the rigid Calvinists and the 
rigid Arminians. Speaking of his first coming, he says :—“[ came not 
to judge the world, but to save the world,” by procuring for mankind 
different talents of initial salvation: a less number for the heathens, 
more for the Jews, and most for the Christians, who are his most pecu- 
liar people: “for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the 
world ; but that the world through him might be saved,” John xii, 47; 
iii, 17. ‘The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was 
lost,” Luke xix, 10. ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, 
and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that 
your fruit should remain,” John xv, 16. Here are doctrines of grace! 
But did our Lord so preach these doctrines as to destroy those of jus- 
tice? Did he so magnify his coming to save the world, as to make 
nothing of his coming to judge the world?) No: hear him speaking of 
his second advent: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, 
then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be 
gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, [them 
that have done good from them that have done evil,] and these shall go 
away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal,” 
Matt. xxv, 31, 32,46. “Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with 
me, to give every man according as his work shall be,” Rev. xxii, 12. 
“For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall 
hear his [the Son of man’s] voice, and shall come forth: they that have 
done good unto the resurrection of life: and they that have done evil 
unto the resurrection of damnation,” John v, 28, 29. Here are doc- 
trines of justice! And the man who says that such doctrines are not 
as Scriptural as the above-mentioned doctrines of grace, may as well 
deny the succession of day and night. 

Dr. Watts, im his excellent book entitled, Orthodory and Charity 
United, gives us a direction which will suitably close the preceding 
appeal to the Scriptures :—“ Avoid,” says he, “the high flights and ex- 
tremes of zealous party men, &c. You will tell me, perhaps, that 
Scripture itself uses expressions as high upon particular occasions, and 
as much leaning to extremes as any men of party among us. But 
remember, then, that the Scripture uses such strong and high expres- 
sions not on one side only, but on both sides, and infinite wisdom hath 
done this more forcibly to impress some present truth or duty: but 
while it is evident the holy writers have used high expressions, strong 
figures of speech, and vehement turns on both sides, this sufficiently 
instructs us that we should be moderate in our censures of either side, 
and that the calm, doctrinal truth, stript of all rhetoric and figures, lies 
nearer to the middle, or at least that some of these appearing extremes 
are more reconcilable than angry men will generally allow. If the 
apostle charges the Corinthians, ‘So run that ye, may obtain,’ 1 Cor. 


[parr 


ix, 24; and tells the Romans, ‘It is not of him that willeth, nor of him 
that runneth, but of God who showeth mercy,’ Rom. ix, 16; we may 
plainly infer that our running and his merey—our diligence and Divine 
grace are both necessary to salvation.” 
From all these scriptures it evidently follows: (1.) That as God is 
’ both a Benefactor and a Governor, a Saviour and a Judge, he has both 
a throne of grace, and a throne of justice. (2.) That those believers 
are highly partial who worship only before one of the Divine thrones, 
when the sacred oracles so loudly bid us to pay our homage before 
both. (3.) That the doctrines of grace are the statutes and decrees 
issuing from the former throne: and that the doctrines of justice are 
the statutes and decrees issuing from the latter. (4.) That the princi- 
pal of all the doctrines of grace is, that there is an election of grace: 
and that the principal of all the doctrines of justice is, that there is an 
election of justice. (5.) That the former of those elections is uncon- 
ditional and partial; as depending merely on the good pleasure of our 
gracious Benefactor and Saviour ; and that the latter of those elections 
is conditional and impartial; as depending merely on the justice and 
equity of our righteous Governor and Judge: for justice admits of no 
partiality, and equity never permits a ruler to judge any men but such 
as are free agents, or to sentence any free agent, otherwise than ac- 
cording to his own works. (6.) That the confounding or not properly 
distinguishing those two elections, and the reprobations. which they draw 
after them, has filled the Church with confusion, and is the grand cause 
of the disputes which destroy our peace. And (lastly) that to restore 
peace to the Church, these two elections must be fixed upon their pro- 
per Scriptural basis, which is attempted in the following section. 


296 EQUAL CHECK. 


SECTION III. 


Eight pair of opposite propositions, on which the opposite doctrines of 
grace and justice are founded,:and which may be considered as the 
basis of Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism, and as a double 
key to open the mysteries of election and reprobation. 


Scripture ground of Catvrinism, Scripture ground of ARMINIANISM, 
and the doctrines of GRACE. and the doctrines of susTICE. 


Proposition I. Proposrrron I, 


Gop is original, eternal, and un- 
bounded life, light, love, and purity ; 
and therefore, wherever these bless- 
ings are found, in any degree, they 
originally come from him, the over- 
flowing fountain of all that is ex- 
cellent in the natural, moral, and 
spiritual world. 


THERE is no death, darkness, 
free wrath, or sin in God: and 
therefore these evils, wherever they 
are found, originally flow from in- 
ferior agents, whose free will may 
become the fountain of all evil; for 
when free agents choose first the 
evil of sin, God is obliged in jus- 
tice to choose next the evil of pun- 
ishment. Thus moral evil draws 
natural evil after it. 


SS 


— 


<< = 


a 


a tn iti at ie a ae 


THIRD.] 


Doctrines of grace. 


II. God is an infinitely wise Ben- 
efactor, full of goodness and GRAcE. 
IIL. It seems highly inconsistent 
with the wisdom of a Creator and 
Benefactor, to make all his crea- 
tures of the same size and rank, 


_ and to deal out his bounties to them 


in the same measure. ‘To say that 
he should do it, is as absurd as to 
affirm that his goodness requires 
him to make every insect as big as 
an elephant, and every spire of 
grass as tall as an oak. 


IV. For want of considering the 
preceding, self-evident proposiions, 
and their necessary consequences, 
the heated advocates for the doc- 
trines of justice have erred, either 
by denying, or by not fully granting 
these two undeniable truths: (1.) 
All good comes originally from 
God’s free grace and overflowing 
fulness. (2.) God, as a sovereign 
benefactor, may do what he pleases 
with his own. Nor should our 
“ eye be evil because he is good,’ 
and displays his superabounding 
goodness toward some men, more 
than he does toward others. 


V. The grand mistake of the 
rigid Arminians consists then in 
not frankly ascribing to God all the 
original goodness, and gracious 
sovereignty which belong to him as 
the sovereign author and first parent 
of all good. 

VI. Would you get clear of the 
error of rigid Arminians, not 
only assert God’s grace and good- 
ness, insisting that he is the first 
cause and eternal parent of ALL 
good, natural and spiritual, temporal 
and eternal, but boldly stand up 
also for his free grace and exube- 


THE RECONCILIATION. 


297 
Doctrines of justice. 


II. God is an infinitely wise Go- 
vernor, full of equity and sustIcE. 

III. It seems highly inconsistent 
with the equity of a Governor and 
a Judge to decree that millions of 
rational creatures shall be born ina 
graceless, sinful, and remediless 
state, that he may display his’ 
righteous sovereignty by passing a 
sentence of death and eternal tor- 
ments upon them, for being found 
in the state of remediless corruption, 
in which his irresistible decree hag 
placed them. 

IV. For want of considering the 
preceding, self-evident propositions, 
and their unavoidable consequences. 
the heated advocates for the doc- 
trines of grace have erred, by 
directly or indirectly maintainmg 
these two capital untruths: (1.) 
Some real evil can originally flow 
from that part of God’s predestina- 
tion which is generally called “ab- 
solute reprobation,” or “ predestina- 
tion to eternal death.” (2.) God, 
as a sovereign, may absolutely 
ordain some of his rational creatures 
to eternal death, before they have 
personally deserved it : or, which is 
all one, he may so pass by unborn” 
children as to msure their continu- 
ance in sin, and their everlasting 
damnation. 

V. The grand mistake of the 
rigid Calvinists consists then in di- 
rectly ascribing to God some ori- 
ginal evil, and a reprobating sove- 
reignty, which is‘irreconcilable with 
the goodness of a Creator, and the 
equity of a Judge. 

VI. Would you, on the other 
hand, get clear of the error of rigid 
Calvinists, not only maintain in 
general that God is just, but confi- 
dently assert that he utterly dis- 
claims a sovereignty which dis- 
penses rewards and punishments 
from a throne of "justice, otherwise 


298 


Doctrines of grace. 


rant goodness ; maintaining that he 
has the most unbounded right to 
dispense the peculiar bounties of 
his grace, without any respect to 
our works. For the children [Esau 
and Jacob] not being yet born, nei- 
ther having done any good or evil, 
that the purpose of God according 
to [the] election [of superior grace | 
might stand, not of works, but of 
him%hat [arbitrarily chooseth and] 
calleth ; it was said, [not the one 
is absolutely ordained to eternal 
death, and the other absolutely 
ordained to eternal life ; but] “ the 
elder shall serve the younger :” the 
younger shall have a_ superior 
blessing. And in this respect “ it 
is not at all of him that willeth, nor 
of him that runneth, but of God, 
who most freely and absolutely 
showeth mercy, or favour,” Rom. 
ix, 11, 12,16. Hence it appears, 
that to deny a partiat election of 
distinguishing grace, is equally to 
fly in the face of St. Paul and of 
reason. 


VII. When we consider the elec- 
tion of partial grace, and the harm- 
less reprobation that attends it, we 
may boldly ask, with St. Paul, 
“Hath not the potter power over 
the clay, of the same lump to make 
one vessel unto [superior] honour, 
and* another unto [comparative] 


* To understand Rom. ix, we must 


EQUAL CHECK. 


[PART 
Doctrines of justice. 


than according to works: witness — 
his own repeated declarations :—«[ _ 
said indeed that thy house, &c, — 
should walk before me for ever: but — 
now be it far from me: for them — 
that honour me, I will honour ; and — 
they that despise me shall be lightly — 
esteemed,” 1 Sam. ii, 30. Again: 
“If the wicked man will turn from — 
all his sins, he shall surely live, d&e 
But when the righteous man turneth 
away from his righteousness, &c, — 
in his sin that he hath sinned shall — 
he die. Yet ye say, The way of 
the Lord is not equal. O house 
of Israel, are not my ways equal? 
Are not your ways unequal? There- 
fore I will judge you, every one 
according to his ways, saith the 
Lord. Repent, &c, for I have no 
pleasure in the death of him that — 
dieth,” Ezek. xviii, 21, &c. Hence 
it appears, that with respect to the — 
election and reprobation of justice, 
God’s decrees, so far as they affect 
our personal salvation or damna- 
tion, are regulated according to our 
personal righteousness or sin, that 
is, according to our works. : 
VII. When we consider the elec- 
tion of impartial justice, and the — 
fearful’ reprobation that answers to 
it, we may say, with St. Peter, «If 
ye call on the Father, who without — 
respect of persons judgeth accord- 
ing to every man’s work, pass the - 
time of your sojourning here in 


remember that the apostle occasionally 


speaks of the election and reprobation of justice ; although his first design is to 
establish the election of grace, and the harmless reprobation which answers to it. 
When he speaks of Jacob and Esau, he contends for the election of grace: and 
when he brings in Pharaoh and “the vessels of wrath,” who, by their obstinate 
unbelief, have provoked vindictive wrath to harden them, or to give them up to 
the hardness of their hearts, he speaks of the election of justice. The passage to 
which this note refers, is the apostle’s transition from the one election to the 
other, and may be applied to both: I have applied it here to the election of grace. 
But if you apply it torthe election of justice, the meaning is: hath not the Go- — 
vernor and Judge of all the earth authority over all mankind, as being their sove- 


reign and lawgiver ? 


Can he not fix the terms on which he will reward or pun- 


ish his subjects? The terms on which he will give them more grace, or take from — 
them the talent of grace which they have buried, and leave them to the rigour of 


THIRD. |] 


Doctrines of grace. 


dishonour?” Cannot God ordain, 
that of two unborn children, the one 
(as Jacob) shall be appointed to 
superior blessings, and (in this 
sense) shall be more loved ; while 
the other (as Esau) shall be de- 
prived of those blessings, and in 
this sense shall be less loved, or 
comparatively hated? “As it is 
written, Jacob have I loved, and 
Esau haye [I hated,” Rom. ix, 13. 
When we speak of the same elec- 
tion, we may say, as the master of 
the vineyard did to the envious 
labourer, ‘Is thine eye evil, because 
the Master of the unwerse is good?” 
Matt. xx, 15. 


VIII. From the preceding pro- 
positions it evidently follows, that 
when God is considered as electing 
and reprobating the children of men 
from his throne of grace, his elec- 
tion and reprobation are partial and 
unconditional. 


THE RECONCILIATION. 


_of him,” Acts x, 34. 


299 


Doctrines of justice. 


fear,” 1 Pet. i, 17. “God is no 
respecter of persons: but in every 
nation he that feareth him and 
worketh righteousness, is cecepted 
We may add 
with Christ, “In the day of judg- 
ment, men shall give account of 
their words. For by thy words 
thou shalt be justified, and by thy 
words thou shalt be condemned,” 
Matt. xu, 36, 37. And we may 
humbly expostulate with God, as 
Abraham did: “That be far from 
thee to do after this manner, to slay 
the righteous with the wicked : and 
that the righteous should be as the 
wicked, that be far from thee : shall 
not the Judge of all the earth do 
right 1” Gen. xvii, 25. 

VIII. From the preceding pro- 
positions it evidently follows, that 
when God is considered as electing 
and reprobating the children of men 
from his throne of justice, his eleey 
tion and reprobation are impartial 
and conditional. 


Having thus laid down the rational and Scriptural ground of Bible 


Calvinism, which centres in the Partian election of grace,—and of 
Bible Arminianism, which centres in the mparrrat election of justice, 
I shall show the nature, excellence, and agreement of both systems in 
the following essays, which, I trust, will convert judicious Arminians to 
Seripture Calvinism, and judicious Calvinists to Scripture Arminianism. 


SECTION IV. 


Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism are plainly stated and equally 
vind.cated in two essays, the first on the doctrines of partial grace, and 
the second on those of impartial justice—Those opposite doctrines are 
shown to be highly agreeable to reason and Scripture, and perfectly 
consistent with each other. 


On the eight pair of balanced propositions, which are produced in the 
preceding section, I rest the two essays which follow. I humbly recom- 
mend the first to rigid Arminians ; because it contains a view of Bible 
Calvinism, of the doctrines of grace, and of the absolute, unconditional, 


his law? Can he not appoint that obedient believers shall be saved, or elected 
to eternal salvation; and that his mark of judicial reprobation shall be fixed upon 
all obstinate unbelievers, as Pharaoh and his host certainly were ? 


300 EQUAL CHECK. . [PaRT 


and partial election, to which they perpetually object. And I earnestly 
recommend the seconp essay to rigid Calvinists, because it contains a 
view of Bible Arminianism, of the doctrines of justice, and of the judi- 
cial, conditional, and impartial election, against which they are unreason. 
ably prejudiced. | 
: 


BIBLE CALVINISM. 


' ESSAY THE FIRST. 


Displaying the doctrines of partial grace, the capital error of the Pela. 
gians, and the excellence of Scripture Calvinism. 

Tur doctrines of partial grace rest on these scriptures :—I will be 
[peculiarly] gracious to whom I will be [peculiarly] gracious; and I 
will show special mercy, on whom I will show special mercy,” Exod. 
xxxilil, 19. “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mime own?” 
Matt. xx, 15. 

These precious doctrines subdivide themselves into a partial election, 
and a partial reprobation ; both flowing from a free, wise, and sovereign 

race, which is notoriously respective of persons. 

The partial election and reprobation of free grace is the gracious and 
wise choice, which God (as a sovereign and arbitrary benefactor) makes, 
or refuses to make, of some persons, Churches, cities, and nations, to 
bestow upon them, for his own mercy’s sake, more favours than he does 
upon others. It is the partiality with which he imparts his talents of 
nature, providence, and grace, to his creatures or servants; giving five 
talents to some, two talents to others, and one to others; not only with- 
out respect to their works, or acquired worthiness of any sort, but fre- 
quently in opposition to all personal demerit. Witness the thieves, 
between whom our Lord was crucified, who were the only dying men 
that Providence ever blessed with the invaluable talents or gracious 
opportunities of the company and audible prayers of their dying Saviour. 
From this doctrine of election it follows, that when God freely elects a 
man to the receiving of one talent only, he freely reprobates him with 
respect to the receiving of two, or five talents. 

According to this election, although God never leaves himself without 
the witness of some favour, by which the basest and vilest of men, who 
have not yet sinned out their day of salvation, are graciously distin. 
guished from beasts and devils; and although, therefore; he is really 
gracious to all; yet he is not equally gracious: for he gives to some 
persons, families, Churches, and nations, more power and opportunity 
to do and receive good, more means of grace, yea, more excellent 
means, more time to use those means, and more energy of the Spirit 
m the use of them, than he gives to other persons, families, Churches, 
and nations. With respect to the election of grace, therefore, there is 


THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 301 


g great partiality in God, and so far is this partiality from bemg in any 


degree caused by any natural or evangelical worth, that it is itself the 
first cause of all natural excellences, and evangelical worthiness. 
Hence it appears, that the doctrine of the Pelagians destroys the doc- 
trines of partial grace: the capital error of those who inconsiderately 
oppose Calvinism, consisting in denying the gracious, electing, and 
reprobating partiality of God; and in supposing that the reasons of 
God’s election and reprobation are always taken from ourselves; that 
God never elected some men in Christ, merely “after the counsel of his © 
own absolute will;” and that the doctrine of a gratuitous election and 
reprobation is both unscriptural and horrible. 

Having thus stated the doctrine of grace, and the opposite error of 
Pelagius, I encounter that famous champion of the rigid free willersfnot 
with a sling and a few stones, but with the Bible and some plain quota- 
tions from it, which will establish and illustrate the gratuitous election 
and reprobation, into which the doctrine of partial grace is subdivided. 

I have already observed, in the Scripture Scales, that “the election 
of [partial] grace” is taught in that part of the parable of the talents, 
where it is said, that the master chose and “called his own servants, 
and delivered unto them unis [not THEIR] goods; freely giving to one 
FIVE talents, to another Two, and to another ons,” Matt. xxv, 14, 15. 
Tn this free distribution of the master’s gobds to the servants, we see a 
striking emblem of God’s partiality. 

Should a Pelagian deny it, and say that God does not deal out his 
talents of grace with Calvinian freeness, but according to the several 
abilities of his servants, 1 reply, by asking the following questions: (1,) 
How came these servants to be? (2.) How came they to be his ser- 
vants? And, (3.) How came they to have every one wis several ability ? 
Was this several ability acquired merely by dint of unassisted, personal 
industry? If you reply in the affirmative, you absurdly hold that God 
casts all his rational creatures in the same mould, that they are all 
exactly alike both by nature and by grace, and that they alone “ make 
themselves to differ,” as often as there is any difference. If you reply 
in the negative, you give up the ground of Pelagianism, and grant that 
God of his rich, undeserved goodness, gives to “ every one his several 
primary abilities” of nature and grace: and when he does this, what 
does he do, but display a primary election and reprovation of grace ; 
seeing he distributes these natural and gracious abilities in as distin- 
guishing a manner as five are distinguished from one; arbitrarily re- 
probating from four talents the persons, families, Churches, and nations 
which he elects only to one talent. 

This scripture, “Learn not to think of men above what is written, 
that not one of you be puffed up: for who maketh thee to differ,” with 
respect to the first number of thy talents? “Which of them is it that 
thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou 
glory as if thou hadst not received it?” 1 Cor. iv, 6,7. This one scrip- 
ture, [ say, like the stone which sunk into Goliah’s forehead, is sufficient, 
one would think, to bring down the gigantic error of Pelagius. But if 
that stone be not heavy enough to do the wished-for execution, I will 
choose two or three more out of the brook of truth, which flows from the 
throne of God. St. James points me to the first: “ Every good gift is 


302 EQUAL CHECK. . [Part 


from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,” James i, 

I am indebted for the others to our Lord’s forerunner, and to our Lor 
himself. “John said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given 
him from heaven. Toone answered, Thou couldest haye no power 
all, except it were given thee from above,” John ili, 27; xix,11. 

If the Pelagian error stands it out against these weighity declarations, 
I shall draw “the sword of the Spirit, “and aim the following strokes 
that fashionable and dangerous doctrine :— 

Why was Adam elected to the enjoyment of human powers? Was 
it not God's free electing love which raised him to the sphere of a ra- 
tional animal; that exalted sphere, from which all other animals are 
reprobated? Was it not distinguishing favour which “ made him but a 
little lower than the angels?” Let the Pelagians tell us what uncreated 
Adam did to merit the election which raised him aboye the first horse? 
Or what the first horse had done to deserve his being everlastingly shut 
out of heaven, and reprobated from all knowledge of his Creator? Why 
was the lark elected to the blessing of a towering flight, and of sprightly 
songs, from which the oyster is so abundantly reprobated ;—the poor 
oyster, which is shut up between two shells, without either legs or wings, 
and so far as we know equally destitute of ears and eyes? 

If a disciple of Pelagius think that I demean my pen by proposing 
these questions, to prove ; theygratuitous and absolute election and repro- 
bation, which are so conspicuous in the world of nature; I will rise to 
his sphere, and ask him what he did to deserve the honour of being 
elected to the superiority of his sex—an honour this, from which his 
mother was absolutely reprobated; and if he has a rich father, who 
gave him a liberal education, I should be glad to know what good works 
he had done, before he was providentially elected to this blessing, from 
which the bulk of mankind are so eminently reprobated. 

Can we not trace the footsteps of an electing or reprobating Proyi- 
dence all the earth over, with respect to persons and places? Why is 
one man elected to sway a sceptre, when another is only elected to 
handle an axe, a spade, a file, or a brush? Why were Abraham, Job, 
and the rich man, mentioned Luke xvi, elected to a plentiful fortune, 
when poor Lazarus, a notorious reprobate of Providence, lay starving at 
the door of merciless plenty? Why does a noble sot idle away his life 
in a palace, while an industrious, sober mechanic, with all his care, can 
hardly pay for a mean lodging in a garret? Why is one man elected 
to enjoy the blessings of the five senses, the advantage of a strong: con- 
stitution, and the prerogative of beauty; while another is born blind or 
deaf, sickly, or deformed? What have these poor creatures done to 
deserve this misfortune? And if God can dispense his providential 
blessings with such apparent partiality, why should it be thought strange 
that he should be partial in the distribution of his spiritual favours? May 
not our heavenly Benefactor have daisies and crocuses, as well as — 
and roses, in the garden of his Church? May he not, in the buildi 
of his temple, use plain free stone, as well as sapphires, amethysts, an 
pearls? And why should we think that it is unjust in God to have 
moral instruments of a different shape and sound in his grand, spiritual — 
concert, when David could (without violation of any right) predestinate 
some of his musicians to praise God with trumpets, shawms, and loud — 


F] 


 THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 303 


‘cymbals, when others were appointed to do it only upon a harp, a lute, 
and a pipe? 

St. Paul compares believers, who are the members of Christ’s mysti 
cal body, to the various parts which compose the human frame; and 
wisely observes, that though our uncomely parts (the feet for example) 
are reprobated from the honour put upon the head, they are, neverthe- 
less, all useful in their places. His illustration is striking, and woula 
help Pelagian levellers to see their mistakes, if they would consider it 
without prejudice. “There are diversities of gifis” under all the infe- 
rior dispensations of God’s grace, as well as under the Gospel of Christ, 
to which the apostle’s simile immediately refers: “The manifestation 
of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For the Spirit 
divides his gifts of partial grace to every man severally as he will. The 
body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I 
am not the hand or the eye, 1 am not of the body, is it therefore not of 
the body?” Is it absolutely reprobated from the bodily system? On 
the other hand, “‘if the whole body were an eye, where were the ear? 
And if the whole were ear, where were the nose? But now hath God 
set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him,” 
that is, according to the good pleasure, counsel, and wisdom of his 
electing or reprobating will. 

If the Pelagians will contend for their.error on a religious ground, 1 
meet them there, and ask, What good thing did Adam to deserve that 
God should plant for him “ the tree of life in the midst of the garden,” 
and should lay upon him no other burden for his trial, than abstaining 
from eating of the fruit of one tree? Would not God have been gra- 
cious, if he had suspended the judicial*reprobation of our first parents 
on their refusing to abstain from all food every other day, for a thou- 
sand years? Who does not see free grace in the appointment of so 
easy a term, by submitting to which he might have made his gratuitous 
election sure, and secured the remunerative election of justice? Again: 
when judicial reprobation had overtaken the guilty pair, what did they 
do to deserve that the execution of the sentence should not instantly 
take place in all the fierceness of the threatened curse? And how many 
good deeds did they muster up, to merit the Gospel of redeeming grace ? 
the precious promise that “the seed of the woman should bruise the 
serpent’s head?” “Verily,” says the apostle, “he [the Redeemer] 
took not on him the nature of angels: but he took on him the seed of” a 
man, viz. Abraham, and became “the son of man,” though he is “ the 
everlasting Father.” Is there no partiality of grace in the mystery of 
the incarnation? Was it mere equity, which dictated that the Son of 
God should come “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” to save sinful man; 
and not “in the likeness of sinful” spirit, to save fallen angels? 

But supposing (not granting) that this partiality in favour of mankind, 
sprang merely from the peculiar excusableness of their case; I ask, 
Why did the sons of Cain deserve to be begotten of a marked murderer, 
who brought them up as sons of Belial; while the children of Seth 
were providentially elected into the family of a pious man, who brought 

them up as sons of God? 
_ But if we will see the election and reprobation of partial grace, 
together with the glory of distinguishing predestination, shining in their 


304 EQUAL CHECK. (parr 


eatest lustre, we must take a view of the “covenants of promise,” 
which God made at different times with favoured men, families, Churches, 
and nations ; peculiar covenants, which flowed every one from a pecu- 
liar election of grace. 5 

Was it not of free, distinguishing grace, that God called Abraham, — 
and raised himself a Church in a branch of his numerous family? — 
Could he not as well have called to this honour Abimelech, king of 
Gerar, Melchisedec, king of Salem, or Job, the perfect man in the land - 
of Uz? Or could he not have said to the father of the faithful, Not in 
Isaac, but in Ishmael, or in the sons of Keturah, thy last wife, “shall — 
thy” peculiarly covenanted “seed be called?” ~ 

Nay, what did Abraham do to be justified as a smner? Was he not 
fully justified in this sense, merely by receiving God’s free gift through 
faith? ‘The point is important, for it respects not only Abraham’s gra-— 
tuitous justification as a sinner, but also the free justification of every 
other sinner, who does not spurn the heavenly gift. Dwell we then a 
moment upon St. Paul’s question, concerning Abraham’s justification 
as a sinner. ‘“ What shall we say then? If Abraham were justified by 
works [as a sinner] he hath whereof to glory ;* but not before God. 


* «With fear” of offending any of my brethren, ‘and with trembling,” lest I 
should injure any doctrine of grace, I will venture to propose here a few ques- 
tions, the decision of which I leave to the candour of those who are afraid of 
making one part of the Scripture contradict another. Granting that a sinner, 
as such, can never have any thing to glory in, unless it be his sin, his shame, 
and condemnation, I ask, Is there not a sense, in which a believer may rejoice 
or glory in his works of faith? And may not such a rejoicing or glorying be 
truly evangelical? What does St, Paul mean, when he says, ‘‘ Let every [be- 
lieving] man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing [or] glorying 
in himself, and not in another?” Gal. vi, 4. Did St. John preach self righteous- 
ness, when he wrote, ‘‘ Hereby [by loving our neighbour in deed and in truth] 
we shall assure our hearts before him,” that is, before God? ‘ For if our heart 
condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things, [that make 
for our condemnation, better than we do.] Beloved, if our heart [or conscience] 
condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God, [that is, before God.] 
And whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, 
and do those things which are pleasing in his sight,” 1 John iii, 9, &c. If all 
such glorying is Pharisaical, who was, to the last, a greater Pharisee than the 
great apostle, who said, ‘‘ Our rejoicing [or glorying] is this, the testimony of 
our conscience, that in godly sincerity, &c, we have had our conversation in the 
world ?” 2 Cor. i, 12. If St. Paul was guilty for living, how much more for 
dying full of this glorying? And is it not evident he did, from his own dying 
speech? ‘J am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at 
hand. Ihave fought—I have finished—I have kept—henceforth there is laid 
up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall 
give me at that day,” 2 Tim. iv, 7, 8. Does not St. John exhort us to attain the 
height of the confidence in which St. Paul died, when he says, ‘‘ Look to your. 
selves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we re- 
ceive a full reward?” 2 John 8. Does not St. Paul represent spiritual men as” 
persons who have ‘God's Spirit bearing witness together with their spirit, [and 
‘vice versa,’ who have their spirit or conscience, bearing witness together with 
God’s Spirit] that they are the children of God?” Rom. viii, 16. And is it right 
to abolish the office of conscience, by turning out of the world all comfortable 
consciousness of having done that which is right in the sight of God, and by 
discarding all tormenting consciousness of having done the contrary, under the - 
frivolous pretence that our Lord, in his parabolical account of the day of judg 
ment, represents the generality of good and wicked men as not being yet pro- 
perly acquainted with this Christian truth, that whatever good or wrong we do to 


. 


7 


THIRD. | BIBLE CALVINISM. 305 


For what says the Scripture? Abraham believed God [when God 
freely called him to receive grace, or more grace] and it was counted 
to him for righteousness,” Rom. rv, 1, &c. 

Now, if “ Abraham believed God,” it is evident that God offered him- 


the least of our fellow creatures, Christ will reward or punish, as if it were done 
to himself? Alas! if the generality of Christians do not yet properly know this 
important truth, which is so clearly revealed to them, is it surprising to hear our 
Lord intimate that the Jewish, Mohammedan, and heathen world will wonder 
when they shall see themselves rewarded or punished according to that deep say-' 
ing of St. Paul, ‘‘The head of every man is Christ?” Whence it follows, that 
whatever good or evil is done to any than, (but more especially to any Christian: 
is done, in some sense, to a member of Christ, and consequently to Christ him- 
self! How deplorable is it to see good men cover an Antinomian mistake by an 
appeal to a portion of Scripture, which our Lord spoke to leave Antinomianism 
no shadow of covering! 

Should it be said that the evangelical glorying, for which I plead after St. 
Paul, is subversive of his own doctrine, because he says, ‘‘ He that glorieth, let 
him glory in the Lord:” I answer, That we keep this Gospel precept, when 
we principally glory in the Lord himself, and when we subordinately glory in 
nothing but what is agreeable to the Lord’s word, and in the manner, and for the 
ends which the Lord himself has appointed. When the apostle szys, ‘* He that 
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord,” he no more supposes that it is wrong to 
glory, as he did, “in the testimony of a good conscience,” than he supposes that 
it is wrong in a woman to be married to a man as well as to Christ, because he 
says, “‘If she marrieth, let her marry in the Lord.” Such a conclusion would 
be as absurd as the following Antinomian inferences :—‘‘ God will have mercy 
and not sacrifice, and therefore we must offer him neither the sacrifice of our 
praises, nor that of our persons.” ‘Christ said to Satan, ‘The Lord thy God 
only shalt thou serve; and therefore it is a species of idolatry in domestics to 
serve their masters.” May God hasten the time when such sophistry shall no 
more pass for orthodoxy! 

Should it be farther objected, that St. Paul says, ‘‘God forbid that I should 
glory, save in the cross of Christ!” Gal. vi, 14: I reply, That it is unreasonable 
not to give evangelical latitude to that expression, because, if it be taken ina 
literal and narrow sense, it absolutely excludes all glorying in Christ’s resurrec- 
tion, ascension, and intercession; a glorying this, which the apostle himself in- 
dulges in, Rom. viii, 34. However, that he could, in a subordinate sense, glory 
in something beside the cross of Christ, appears from his own glorying in his 
labours, sufferings. infirmities, revelations, and converts; as well as in his preach- 
ing the Gospel in Achaia without being burthensome to the people. But all this 
subordinate glorying was “‘in the Lord, through whom” he did and bore all things, 
and ‘to whom” he referred all inferior honours. And therefore when he said, 
that ‘the righteous Judge” would give him ‘‘a crown of righteousness” for having 
**so run as to obtain it,” he, no doubt, designed to cast it at the feet of Him, in 
whose cross he principally gloried, and whose person was his “all in all.” 

** But all this glorying was before men, and not before God.” So it is said: 
but I prove the contrary by reason and Scripture: (1.) By ‘“‘reason.” Next to 
the cross of Christ, what St. Paul chiefly gloried or rejoiced in, was “the testi- 
mony of his conscience,” 2 Cor. i, 12. Now I ask, Had the apostle this joy and 
glorying only when he was in company? Did he not enjoy it when he was alone? 
if you say that he had it only in company, you represent him as a vile hypocrite, 
who could change the testimony of his conscience, as easily as he did his coat 
orcompany. And if you grant that he had this rejoicing when he was alone, 
you give up the point; for reason tells us, that all the rejoicing and glorying, 
which an enlightened man has in his own conscience, when he is alone, must be 
before od; because an enlightened conscience is a court, at which none is pre- 
sent but God, and witere God always presides. 

_ 2. By “Scripture.” Paul himself exhorts the Thessalonians so to ‘‘ walk” as 
to ‘please God,” 1 Thess. iy, 1. Now the joyous testimony of our conscience 
that we walk so as to please God, must, in the nature of things, be a testiniony 
“*before” God. St. Peter represents our present salvation as consisting in “the 


Vou. IL. 20 


self first to Abraham, that Abraham might believe in him. Therefore 
a free election, calling, and gift (for an offer from God is a gift on his 
part, whether we receive what he offers or not) a free gift, I say, pre 
ceded Abraham’s faith. His very belief of any justifying and saving 
truth proves that this truth, in which he believed, was freely offered and 
given him, that he might believe in it; yea, before he possibly could 
believe in it. To deny this is as absurd as to deny that God freely 
gives us eyes and light before we can see. Abraham, therefore, who 
was so eminently justified by the works of faith as an obedient believer, 
was initially accepted or justified as*a sinner of the Gentiles by mere 
grace, and before he could make his calling and acceptance sure by 
believi ing and obeying: for the power to believe and obey always flows — 
from the first degree of our acceptance, a free gift this, which is “come 
upon all men to justification,” Rom. v, 13, though, alas! most men re- 
fuse it through unbelief, or throw it away through an obstinate contin- 
uance in sin. Abraham, therefore, by receiving this free gift through 
faith, was fully pees, as @ sinner, and went on from faith to faith, — 
till, by receiving and embracing the special grace, which called him to. | 
a covenant of peculiarity, he became the father of all those who em- — 
brace the special callings and promises of God, under the patriarchal, — 
Mosaic, and Christian dispensations of Divine grace. | 

I have said that through faith Abraham was fully justified as a sinner, © 
because our full justification as sinners implies two things: (1.) God’s — 
freely justifymg us; and, (2.) Our freely receiving his justifying grace. | 
Just as being fully knighted implies two things: (1.) The king’s con- 
descending to confer the honour of knighthood upon a gentleman ; and, 
(2.) That gentleman’s submitting to accept of this honour. 

To conclude this digression : the > free and full justification of a sinner | 
by faith alone, or by a mere receiving of the gratuitous, justifying merey | 


306 . EQUAL CHECK. _ [parr 
: 


of God, is a most comfortable, reasonable, and Scriptural doctrine, which 
St. Paul strongly maintains, where he says, “'To him that worketh not, 
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for 
righteousness,” Rom. iv, 5. When Luther therefore held forth #his 
glorious truth, which the Church of Rome had so greatly obscured, he ~ 
did the work of a reformer, and of an apostle. Happy would it haye ~ 
lbeen for the Protestant world, if he had always done it as St. Paul and 
‘St. James; and if, adding the doctrines of justice to the doctrines of 
_grace, he had as impartially enforced the judicial justification of a believer 
_by the works of faith, as the apostle does in these words, “ Not the hearers — 
of the law [of nature, of Moses, or of Christ] are just before God, but 
.the doers shall be justified—in the day when God shall judge the secrets — 
of men, according to my Gospel,” Rom. ii, 13, 16, yea, and in the day 
‘when God shall try the faith of believers, that he may justly praise or 


.answer of a good conscience toward God,” that is, ‘‘before God,” 1 Pet. iii, 21. 
And St. John cuts up the very root of the objection, where he declares, that, by © 
the consciousness of our love to our neighbour, ‘‘ we assure our heatts before 
*God,” that ‘if our hearts condemn us not, then we have confidence toward God ;” — 
and that if we abide in Christ by walking zs he also walked, “we shall have con 
fidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming,” 1 John 3 ii, 6, 28; iii, 18, — 
.&c. How -surprising is it, that an objection, which is so contrary to reason, Scrip. _ b 
ture, and the experience of the apostles, should be as confidently prodeced by > 
~Protestants, as if it contained the marrow of the Gospel! 


4 


HIRD.] : BIBLE CALVINISM. 307 


blame them, reward or punish them. And how can he do this justly, 
without having respect to their own works, that is, to their tempers, 
words, and actions, which are the works of their own hearts, lips, and 
hands? This important doctrine Luther sometimes overlooked, although 
St. James strongly guards it by these anti-Solifidian words, “« Was not 
Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac, &c? 
Ye see then how that by works a belzeving man is justified, and not by 
faith only,” James ii, 21, 24. 

But a sinner, considered as such, can never be justified otherwise 
than by mere favour.. Nor can* St! Paul’s doctrine be too strongly 
insisted upon to “the praise of the glory of God’s grace,” and to the 
honour of “the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, 
unto all and upon all them that believe ; for there is no difference: for 
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified 
freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ,” 
Rom. iii, 21, &c. Here we see that, to the complete justification of a 
sinner, there go three things: (1.) Mercy or free grace on God’s part, 
which mercy, (together with his justice satisfied by Christ, and his 
faithfulness in keepimg his Gospel promises,) is sometimes called “ the 
righteousness of God.” (2.) Redemption on the Mediator’s part. And, 
(3.) Faith on the sinner’s part. And if an interest in the “ redemption 
that is in Jesus Christ,” namely, in his meritorious incarnation, birth, 
life, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession, is what is commonly 
called “ Christ’s imputed righteousness,” I do not see why any Christian 
should be offended at that comprehensive phrase. In this Scriptural 
sense of it, nothing can be more agreeable to the tenor of the Gospel 
than to say, “ All have sinned,” and all sinners who are received to 
Divine favour, “ are justified freely by God’s grace” or mercy, through 
Christ’s merits and satisfaction ; or (if you please) through his imputed 
righteousness ; or to speak in St. Paul’s language, “ through the redemp- 
tion that is in Jesus Christ.” For my part, far from finding fault with 
this comfortable, evangelical doctrine, I solemnly declare, that to all 
etegnity I shall have nothing to plead for my justification as a simmer— 
absolutely nothing, but, (1.) God’s free grace in giving his only begotten 
Son “to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” (2.) Christ’s meritorious 
life, death, and intercession, which abundantly avail for the chief of 
sinners. . And, (3.) The Gospel charter, which graciously offers mercy 
through Christ to the chief of sinners, and according to which I am 
graciously endued with a power to forsake sin by repentance, and to 
receive Christ and his salvation by faith. And therefore to all eternity 
I must shout. Free grace! and make my boast of imputed righteousness.* 


* Some of my readers will possibly ask why I plead here for the good sense of 
that much controverted phrase, ‘‘ The imputed righteousness of Christ,” when, in 
my Second Check to Antinomianism, I have represented our Lord as highly 
disapproving, in the day of judgment, not only the plea of a wicked Arminian, 
who urges that ‘‘ God is merciful, and that Christ died for all;” but also the plea 
of a wicked Solifidian, who begs to be justified merely by the imputed righteousness 
of Christ, without any good works. I answer: (1.) I no more designed to ridicule 
the above-stated doctrine of imputed righteousness, than to expose the doctrine of 
God’s mercy, or that of general redemption. And I am truly sorry, if by not 
sufficiently explaining myself I have given to my readers any just occasion to 
despise these precious doctrines of grace, or any one of them. (2.) J only wanted 


308 EQUAL CHECK. : I ivarr 


And, indeed, 
While Jesus’ blood, through earth and skies, 
Mercy, free, boundless mercy cries, 


What believer can help singing, 


“ Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, 
My beauty are, my glorious dress ; 
*Midst flaming worlds, in these array’d, 
With joy shall I lift up my head.” 


To return: the same grace which called Abraham, rather than Terah 
his father, or Lot his nephew ; this same distinguishing grace, I say, 
chose and called Isaac to the covenant of peculiarity, from which 
Ishmael, his elder brother, was reprobated: a special calling, which 
had been fixed upon before the birth of Isaac, and therefore could no 
ways be procured by his obedience. In full opposition to Isaac’s design, 


the same distinguishing grace called Jacob rather than Esau, to inherit — 


the promises of the peculiar covenant made with Abraham and Isaac. 
« For the children not being yet born, neither having done any good or 
evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, [to merely gratuitous 
favours, | might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, [of arbitrary 
‘and partial grace,] it was said, The elder shall serve the younger.” 
Nor can it be said that this partial preferring of Jacob had its rise in 
God’s foreseeing that Esau would sell his birthright, for the above-quoted 
passage is flatly contrary to this notion: beside, Jacob himself, by Divine 
appointment, transferred to Joseph’s youngest son the blessing which 
naturally belonged to the eldest. “Joseph said to his father, Not so, 
my father :” be not partial to my younger son. “ This is the first-born, 
put thy right hand upon his head :” he hath not sold his birthright like 
Esau. “But his father refused, and said, I know it, my son. He 
[Manasses] shall be great; but truly his [younger] brother [ Ephraim] 
shall be greater than he,” Gen, xlviii, 18, 19. A clear proof this, that 
the reprobation of grace is quite consistent with an election to inferior 
blessings. * 
Nor was the calling of Moses less special than that of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob. Was it not God’s free, predestinating grace which 


to guard against the abuse of evangelical principles, and to point out the absurd 
consequences of the spreading opinion, that ‘‘ God will justify us in thé great day 
merely by Christ’s imputed righteousness, without the works of faith, or without 
any regard to personal righteousness and inherent holiness.” This tenet, which 
is the very soul of speculative Antinomianism, leaves the doctrine of justice 
neither root nor branch. At this unscriptural notion only I levelled the blow, 
which has given so much groundless offence to so many persons, whom I honour 
for their piety, love for the resemblance they bear to the holy Jesus, and commend 
for their zeal in maintaining the doctrines of grace, so far as they do it without 
injuring the doctrines of godliness and justice. And I am glad to have this 
opportunity of explaining myself, and assuring my Calvinist brethren that I would 
lose a thousand lives, if [ had them, rather than asperse the blood and righteous- 


ness of my Saviour, or ridicule the Christian covenant, which is ordered in all — 


things and sure, and on the gracious terms of which (as well as on the Divine 
mercy which fixed them, the infinitely meritorious obedience which procured 
them, and the atoning blood which seals them) I entirely rest all my hopes of 
salvation in time, in the day of judgment, and to all eternity. And that this is 
Mr. Wesley’s sentiment, as well as mine, is evident from his reconciling sermon 
on imputed righteousness 


| 


THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 309 


so wonderfully preserved him in his infancy, and so remarkably ordained 
him at Mount Horeb to be the deliverer of the Israelites, and the visible 
mediator of the Jewish covenant? Can we help seeing some distin- 
guishing grace in the following declaration: “I will do what thou hast 
spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by 
name : I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim 
the name of the Lord before thee?” 

I cannot conceive with what eyes Pelagius cculd read the Scriptures. 
For my part, I see a continued vein of distinguishing favour running 
through the whole. Does the Lord want a man of peculiar endowments 
to finish the tabernacle? He says to Moses, “See, I have called by 
name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled 
him with the Spirit of God,” Exod. xxxi, 2,3. Does he want a captain 
for his people, and a man to be Moses’ successor? Caleb himself is 
reprobated from that honour, and the Lord says, “Take thee Joshua, 
the son of Nun.” ‘The same distinguishing grace manifests itself in the 
special calling of Barak, Gideon, Samson, Samuel, Saul, David, So- 
lomon, Elisha, Jehu, Daniel, Cyrus, Nehemiah, Esther, Esdras, Judas 
Maccabeus, and all the men whom the Lord, by his special grace and 
power, raised up to instruct, rule, punish, or deliver his people. 

I have observed that, in the very nature of things, a gratuitous and 
personal reprobation follows the gratuitous and personal election which 
I contend for. Is not this assertion incontestable? While Jacob and 
the Israelites were peculiarly loved, were not Esau and the Edomites 
comparatively hated? When God will show a special, distinguishing 
favour, can he show it to all? Does not reason dictate that if he showed 
it to all, it would cease ta be special and distinguishing? If God had 
made his covenants of peculiarity with all mankind, would they not have 
ceased to be peculiar? 

Once more : if God could, without impropriety, show more favour to the 
Jews than to the Gentiles, and to the Christians than to the Jews; I ask, 
Why cannot he also, without impropriety, show more favour to one Jew, 
of to one Christian, than he does to another? By what argument can 
you prove that it is wrong in God to do personally, what it is granted 
on all sides he does nationally? If you can, without injustice, give a 
crown to an English beggar, while you give only sixpence to a poor 
Irishman; why may you not give ten shillings to another English 
beggar, supposing your generosity prompts you to show him that special 
favour? And may not God, by the rule of proportion, give you ten 
talents of grace to improve, while he gives your Christian brother only 
five ; as well as he can bestow five talents upon your fellow Christian, 
while he gives a poor Mohammedan one talent only ? 

Can any thing be more glaring than the partiality which our Lord 
describes in these words: “Wo unto thee, Chorazin; wo unto thee, 
Bethsaida ; for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, 
which have been done in thee, they had a great while ago repented, 
sitting in sackcloth and ashes?’ Luke x, 13. Who can read these 
words with a grain of candid attention, and refuse his assent to the fol- 
lowing proposition? (1.) God was notoriously partial to Chorazin and 
Bethsaida; for he granted them more means of repentance, and more 
vowerful means, and for a longer season, than he did to Tyre and 


\ 


310 EQUAL CHECK. [paRr 
Sidon. (2.) If God had been as gracious to the two heathenish cities 


as he was to the two Jewish towns, Tyre and Sidon “would have 


repented—a great while ago”—in the deepest and most solemn manner, — 


“sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” And, (3.) The doctrine of neces. 

or irresistible grace, is unscriptural ; and the doctrines of impartial jus- 
tice are never overthrown by the doctrines of partial grace; for not- 
withstanding God’s distinguishing favour, which wrought wonders to 


bring Chorazin and Bethsaida to repentance, they repented not; and — 


our Lord says in the next verse, “ But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre 


and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you,” Who | have resisted — 


such distinguishing grace. 

For want of understanding the partiality of Divine grace, and the 
nature of the harmless reprobation, which flows from this\harmless par- 
tiality, some of God’s faithful servants, who have received but one or 
two talents, are tempted to think themselves absolute reprobates; as 
often, at least, as they compare their case with that of their fellow ser- 
vants, who have received more talents than they: while others, who 
have been indulged with peculiar favours, and have sinned, or idled them 
away, consider themselves as peculiar favourites of Heaven, upon whom 
God will never pass a sentence of judicial reprobation. Hence arise 
the despairing fears of some believers, the presumptuous hopes of others, 
and the spread of the mistaken doctrines of grace. By the same mis- 
take, rash preachers frequently set up God’s peculiar grants to some of 
his upper servants, as a general standard for all the classes of them, 
and pass a reprobating sentence upon every one who does not yet come 
up to this standard ; to the great offence of the judicious, to the grief 
of many sincere souls, whom God would not have thus grieved, and to 
the countenancing of Calvinian reprobation. 

A plain appeal to matter of fact will throw light upon all the precea- 
ing remarks. Are not many true Christians evidently reprobated, with 
respect to some of the special favours which our Lord conferred on the 
woman of Samaria, Zaccheus, Levi, (afterward St. Matthew,) and St. 
Paul? How few have been called in so extraordinary, abrupt, ‘and 
cogent a manner as they were! Nay, how many strumpets, extor- 
tioners, busy worldlings, and persecutors in all ages, have been hurried 
into eternity, without having received the special favours, from which 
we date the conversion of those four favourites of free grace ! 

Has not God in all ages shown the partiality of his grace, by giving 
more of it to one man than to another !—to persecuting Saul, for exam- 
ple, than to thousands of other sincere persecutors, who thought, as well 
as he, that they did God service in dragging his saints to sis and to 
death? Did not the Lord show Jess distinguishing merey to Zimri and 
Cosbi than to David and Bathsheba? Less to Onan than to the inces 
tuous Corinthian, and the woman caught in adultery? Less to the 
forty-two children, who mocked the bald prophet, than to the more 
guilty sons of Jacob, who went about to kill their pious brother, sold 
him into Egypt, and covered their cruelty with hypocrisy and lies? 
Did he not give less time to repent to drunken Belshazzar tlan he did 
to proud Nebuchadnezzar? Did he not hurry Ananias and Sapphira 
into eternity, with a severity which he did not display toward Cain, 
Solomon, Peter, and Judas? Did he show as much long suffering to 


t 


THIRD.| BIBLE CALVINISM. 311 


Eli and his sons, or to King Saul and his unfortunate family, as he did 
to David and his ungodly house? Was he as gracious to the man who 
gathered sticks on the Sabbath, or to him who conveyed the Babylonish 
garment into his tent, as he was to Gehazi, and to King Ahab, whom 
he spared for years after the commission of more atrocious crimes? 
Did not Christ show less distinguishing love to Zebedee than to his 
sons? ‘Less to the woman of Canaan than to Mary Magdalene? Less 
to Jude, Bartholomew, and Lebbeus, than to Peter, James, and John? 
How soon, how awfully did God destroy Nadab and Abihu, for offering 
strange fire? Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for resisting Moses? 
Uzzah, for touching the ark? And the prophet of Judah, for eating 
bread in Bethel; when nevertheless he bore for months or years with 
the wickedness of Pharaoh, the idolatry of Solomon, the witchcrafts of 
bloody Manasses, and the hypocrisy of envious Caiaphas? Is not this 
unequal dealing of Divine patience too glaring to be denied by any 
uuprejudiced person ? 

Does not this partiality extend itself even to places and cities?) Why 
did God reprobate Jericho, and elect Jerusalem? “Jerusalem, the city 
which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name 
there,” 1 Kings xiv, 21. Do we read less than nineteen times this 
partial sentence, “'The place which the Lord shall choose,” even in the 
book of Deuteronomy? Could not God have chosen Babylon, Bethle- 
hem, or Bethel, as well as the city of the Jebusites? Why did he make 
“Mount Zion his holy hill?” Why did he “love the gates of Zion, 
more than all the dwellings of Jacob?” Is there neither election nor 
reprobation in these words of the psalmist? “ Moreover he refused 
[reprobated] the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not [passed by] the 
tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion, which 
he loved,” Psa. Ixxviii, 67,68. Again: why did the angel, who troubled 
the pool of Bethesda, pass by all the other pools of Jerusalem? Why 
did our Lord send the lepers to the pool of Siloam, rather than to any 
other? And why were Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, 
reprobated with respéct to the power of healing Naaman’s leprosy, when 


- Jordan was elected to it? Was it not because God would convince the 


Syrians of his partiality to his peculiar people, and to their country ? 

But is this partiality confined to Judea and Syria? Or to Egypt and 
Goshen? May we not see the footsteps of an electing, partial provi- 
dence in this favoured island? Why is it a temperate country? , Could 
not God have placed it under the heaps of snow which cover Iceland, 
or in the hot climates, where the vertical sun darts his insufferable 
beams upon barren sands? Could he not have suffered it to be enslaved 
by the Turks, as the once famous isle of Crete now is? And to le in 
popish darkness, as Sicily does? Or in heathenish* superstitions, as the 
large islands of Madagascar and Borneo do? 


* Mr. Addison gives us this just view of our gratuitous election, in one of the 
Spectators. I shall transeribe the words of that judicious and pious writer :— 
“The sublimest truths, which among the heathens only here and there one, of 
brighter parts, and more leisure than ordinary, could attain to, are now grown 
familiar to the meanest inhabitants of these nations. Whence came this sur- 
prising change: that regions formerly inhabited by ignorant and savage people, 
should now outshine ancient Greece in the most elevated notions of theology and 


312 EQUAL CHECK. [Parr 


. Who does not see the partiality of sovereign grace in the sparing of | 
some nations, cities, and Churches? Did not God reprobate the dis- — 


obedient Amalekites sooner than the disobedient Jews? Why are 


former utterly destroyed, when the latter are yet so wonderfully pre- — 


served? Did not God bear less with Ai, Nineveh, and Carthage, than 
he does with London, Paris, and Rome? Less with the fen tribes, which 
formed the kingdom of Israel, than with the two tribes which formed the 
kingdom of Judah? Why does the Lord bear longer with the Church 
of Rome than he did with the Churches of Laodicea and Constantinople? 
[s it merely because the Church of Rome is less corrupted? Nay,why 
does he bear so long with this present evil world, when, comparatively 
speaking, he destroyed the antediluvian world so soon? And why are 


the Europeans, in general, elected to the blessings of Christianity, from 


which the rest of the world is generally reprobated; most nations in 
Asia, Africa, and America, being indulged with no higher religious 
advantages than those which belong to the religions of Confucius, 
Mohammed, or uncultivated nature ? 

If God’s partiality in our favour is so glaring, why do not all our 
Gospel ministers try to affect us with a due sense of it? May I ven- 
ture to offer a reason of this neglect? As the sins forbidden in the 
seventh commandment by their odious nature frequently reflect a kind 
of unjust shame upon a pure marriage bed, which, according to God’s 
own declaration, is truly honourable ; so the wanton election and horrid 
reprobation, that form the modern doctrines of grace, have, I fear, 
poured an undeserved disgrace upon the pure election, and the wise 
reprobation, which the Scriptures maintain. Hence it is, that even 
judicious divines avoid touching upon these capital doctrines in public, 
lest minds defiled with Antinomianism should substitute their own un- 
holy notions of election, for the holy notions which the Scriptures 
convey. ‘This evil shame is a remain of Pelagianism, or of false wis- 
dom. ‘The abuse of God’s favours ought not to make us renounce the 
right use of them. Far then from being wise above what is written, let 


us with the prophets of old make a peculiar use of the doctrine of partial 


grace, to stir up ourselves and others to suitable gratitude. How 
powerful is the following argument of Moses! “The Lord thy God 
hath chosen thee, to be a special people to himself, above all people that 
are upon the face of the earth. ‘The Lord thy God did not set his love 
upon thee, nor choose thee, because ye were more in number than any 
people, (for ye were the fewest of all people,) but because the Lord 
loved you, &c. He had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he 


chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day, 


&c. ‘He is thy praise, and he is thy God, who hath done for thee these 
great and wonderful things,” Deut. vii, 6, &c; x, 15,21. “For what 
nation is there so great, who have God so nigh unto them as the Lord 
our God is in all things which we call upon him for? Ask now of the 
days that are past: ask from the one side of heaven to the other, whe. 


morality? Is it the éffect of our own parts and industry? Have our common 
mechanics more refined understandings than the ancient philésophers? It is 
owing to the God of truth, who came down from heaven, and condescended to 
be himself our teacher. It is as we are Christians, that we possess more excellent 
and Divine truths than the rest of mankind.” 


———— 


THIRD. ] BIBLE CALVINISM. 313 


ther there hath been any such thing as this great thing is. Did ever 
people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou 
hast heard? Or hath God assayed to take him a nation from the midst 
* another nation, by signs and wonders, &c? Unto thee it was showed 
hat thou mightest know [with peculiar certainty] that the Lord he is 
God,” Deut. iv, 7, 32, &c. 

Does not the psalmist stir up the Lord’s chosen nation to gratitude and 
praise, by the same motive of which the anti-Calvinists are ashamed? 
“ He showeth his word to Jacob, his statutes to Israel. He hath not 
dealt so with any nation. As for his judgments, they [the heathen] have 
not known them. Praise ye the Lord, O ye seed of Abraham, ye 
children of Jacob his chosen,” Psalm exlii, 19, 20; cv, 6. 

Nay, does not God himself stir up Jerusalem, (the holy city become 
a harlot,) to repentance and faithfulness, by dwelling upon the greatness 
of his distinguishing love toward her? How strong is this exposiulation ! 
How richly descriptive of God’s partiality toward that faithless city ! 
“Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity is 
of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a 
Hittite. Thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy 
person in the day that thou wast born; and when I passed by thee, and 
saw thee polluted in thy blood, I said to thee, Live. I entered into a 
covenant with thee: I put a beautiful crown upon thy head: thou didst 
prosper into a kingdom, and thy renown went forth among the heathen 
for thy beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness which I had put 
upon thee, saith the Lord,” Ezek. xvi, 3, &c. If this could be said to 
Jewish Jerusalem, how much more to Protestant London ! 

Should rigid Arminians still assert that there is absolutely no respect 
of places and persons with God, I desire the opposers of God’s gra- 
cious partiality to answer the following questions :—-When the apostle 
says, “The time of heathenish ignorance God winked at, but now 
explicitly commandeth [by his evangelists] all men every where to 
repent,” Acts xvii, 30, does he not represent God as being partial to 
all those men, to whom he sends apostles, or messengers, on purpose to 
bid them repent? And does not the Lord show us more distinguishing 
love, than he did to all the nations, which he “suffered to walk in their 
own ways, without the Gospel of Christ, aliens from the commonwealth 
of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, 
[founded upon a special Gospel message,] and being without God in the 
world? Acts xiv, 16; Eph. ii, 12. 

Again: when St. Paul observes that “God spake in time past to the 
fathers by the prophets ; but hath, in these last days, spoken to us by his 
Son,” Heb. i, 1, 2; is it not evident that he pleads for the partiality of 
distinguishing grace; intimating that God has favoured us more than 
he did the fathers? And has not our Lord strongly asserted the same 
thing, where he says, “ Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your 
ears, for they hear: for verily I say unto you, that many prophets and 
righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have 
not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not 
heard them?” Matt. xiii, 16, 17. 

Once more: what is the Gospel of Christ, from first to last, but a 
glorious blessing flowing from distinguishing grace; a blessing from 


314 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


which all mankind were reprobated for four thousand years, and from 
which the generality of men are to this day cut off by awful, providen. 
tial decrees? When the Pelagians, and rigid Arminians, therefore, are 
ashamed to shout the partiality of God’s free, distinguishing grace toward 
us, (Christians,) are they not “ashamed of the Gospel of Christ,” and of 
the election of peculiar grace, by which we are raised so far above the 
dispensations of the Jews and heathens? A precious and exalted election — 
or predestination, in which St. Paul and the primitive Christians could 
never sufficiently glory, (as appears by Eph. i, ui, iil,) and of which it — 
is almost as wicked to be ashamed, as it is to be ashamed of Christ him- 
self. Nay, to slight our election of grace,—our election in Christ, is 
to be ashamed of our evangelical crown, which is more inexcusable, 
than to blush at our evangelical cross. 

Hence it appears that the genuine tendency of Pelagius’ error, toward — 
which rigid Arminians lean too much, is to make us (Christians) fight 
against Gcod’s distinguishing love to us; or, at least, to hide from us 
“the riches of the peculiar grace, wherein God hath abounded toward 
Us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery 
of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him- 
self, when he predestinated us, according to the counsel of his grace, 
and the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his pecu- 
liar grace, wherein he made us accepted in the Beloved, [and his dis- 
pensation,] that we should be to the praise of his glory ;” that is, that 
we (Christians) should “ show forth the praises” of his distinguishing 
mercy, and glorify him for bestowing upon vs those evangelical 
favours, from which he still reprobates so many myriads of our fellow 
creatures. ' 

O Pelagianism, thou wretched levelling system, how can we, Chris- 
tians, sufficiently detest thee, for thus robbing us of the peculiar com- 
forts arising from the election of grace, which so eminently distinguishes 
us from Jews, Turks, and heathens! And how can we sufficiently 
decry thee, for robbing, by this means, our sovereign Benefactor of “the 
praise of the glory of his grace!’ Were it not for Pelagian unbelief, 
which makes us regardless of the comforts of our gratuitous election in 
Christ, and for whims of Calvinian reprobation, which damp or destroy 
these comforts, many Christians would triumph in Christ; and, “re- 
joicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory, in the vocation where. 
with they are called, they would thank God for his unspeakable gift.” 
They would shout electing love as loudly as Zelotes, but not im the 
unnatural, unscriptural, barbarous, damnatory sense in which he does 
it. They would not say, “Why me, Lord? Why me? Why am I 
absolutely appointed to eternal justification and finished salvation, while 
most.of my neighbours (poor creatures!) are absolutely appointed to 
eternal wickedness, and finished damnation?’ But with charitable and 
wondering gratitude, they would cry out, “ Why us, Lord? Why us? 
Why are we (Christians) predestinated and elected to the blessings of 
the full Gospel of Christ, from which Enoch, the man who walked with 
thee, Abraham, the man whom thou calledst thy friend, Moses, the 
man who talked with thee face to face, David, the man after thy own 
heart, Daniel, the man greatly beloved, and John the Baptist, the man 
who excelled all the Jewish prophets, were every one reprobated ? 


‘ THIRD.] © BIBLE CALVINISM. 315 


In such evangelical strains as these should Christians express before 
God their peculiar gratitude for their peculiar election and calling : and 
then running to each other, with hearts and mouths full of evangelical 
congratulations, they should say as the apostle did to Timothy, “God 
hath saved us [Christians] and called us with a holy [Christian] calling ; 
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, 
which was given us [Christians] in Christ Jesus before the world 
began, [when God planned the various dispensations of his grace,] but 
is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, 
who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light 
through the Gospel of Christ—a precious, perfect Gospel, with which 
God hath blessed us, as well as our neighbours, who are ungrateful 
enough to “put it from them,” 2 Tim. i, 9, 10. In a word, they should 
all say to their brethren in the election of [Christian] grace, “ Blessed 
be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant 
mercy, hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of 
Christ, in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice ; 
receiving the end of your [Christian] faith, even the [Christian] salva- 
tion of your souls : of which salvation the prophets inquired, and searched 
diligently, who prophesied of the [Christian] grace that should come unto 
you: unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us 
[Christians] they did minister the things which are now reported unto 
you, by them that have preached the Gospel unto you, with the Holy 
Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look 
into,” 1 Peter i, 8, é&zc. “ Unto him,” therefore, that so peculiarly “loved 
us,” as to elect and call us into his Christian reformed Church, “ which 
he hath purchased with his own blood ;” pecfiarly redeeming it from 
heathenish ignorance, Jewish bondage, and popish superstition—* unto 
him,” I say, that thus “loved us, [reformed Christians, ] and washed us 
from our sins,” not by the blood of lambs and heifers, as Aaron washed the 
Jews, “but by his own blood, and hath made us [who believe] kings 
and priests to God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for 
ever and ever!” Rey. i, 5,6; Acts xx, 28. 

But while reformed Christians express thus their joy and gratitude 
for their election to this. peculiar salvation, they should not forget to 
guard this comfortable doctrine in as anti-Solifidian a manner as St. 
Paul and St. Peter did, when they said to their fellows elect, “If every 
transgression and disobedience [against the Gospel of Jewish salvation | 
received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape if wE 
neglect so great salvation, as that which at the first began to be spoken 
by the Lord Jesus,” and his apostles! “ Wherefore the rather, brethren, 
partakers of the heavenly calling” in Christ, who is “ the Apostle and 
High Priest of our profession” or dispensation, “ give diligence to make 
your [high] calling and [distinguishing] election sure; for, if ye do 
these things, ye shall never fall” into the aggravated ruin which awaits 
the “neglecters of so great salvation,” Hebrews ii, 2, 3; iii, 1; 2 
Peter i, 10. 

Should a rigid Arminian say, “I cannot reconcile your doctrine of 
partial grace with Divine goodness and equity, and therefore I cannot 
receive it; why should not God bear with all men as long as he did 
with Manasses? With all nations as long as he did with the Jews? And 


316 EQUAL CHECK. * [parr 


with all Churches as long as he does with the Church of Rome Py 
answer :— he 

Mercy may lengthen out her cords on particular occasions to display 
her boundless extent. But if she did so on all occasions, she would 
countenance sin, and pour oil on the fire of wickedness. If God dis- 
played the same goodness and long suffering toward all sinners, Churches, 


and nations, then all sinners would be spared till they had committed — 


as many atrocious crimes as Manasses, who filled Jerusalem with blood 


and witchcraft. All fallen Churches would be tolerated, till they had 
poisoned the Gospel truth with as many errors as the Church of Rome ~ 


imposes upon her votaries. And all corrupted nations would not only be 
preserved till they had actually “sacrificed their sons and daughters 
to devils ;” but also till they had an opportunity to “kill the Prince of 
life,” coming in person to “gather them as a hen gathers her brood 
under her wings.” So universal a mercy as this would be the greatest 
cruelty to myriads of men, and instead of setting off Divine justice, would 
fora time lay it under a total eclipse. 

Beside, according to this impartial, this levelling scheme, God would 
have been obliged to make all men kings, as Manasses; all Churches 
Christian, as the Church of Rome ; and all people his peculiar people, 
as the Jewish nation. But even then distinguishing grace would not 
have been abolished: unless God had made all men archangels, all 
Churches like the triumphant Church, and all nations like the glorified 
nation which inhabits the heavenly Canaan. So monstrous are the ab- 
surdities which result from the levelling scheme of the men who laugh at 
the doctrine of the Gospel dispensations ; and of those who will not allow 
Divine sovereignty and’supreme wisdom to dispense unmerited favours 
as they please; and to deal out their talents with a variety which, upon 
the whole, answers the most excellent ends ; as displaying best the ex- 
cellency of a government, where sovereignty, mercy, and justice wisely 
agree to sway their common sceptre ! 

Should a Pelagian leveller refuse to yield to these arguments, under 
pretence that “they lead to,the Calvinian doctrines of lawless grace, free 
wrath, and absolute reprobation ;” I answer this capital objection five 
different: ways :— 

1. The objector is greatly mistaken: for, holding forth the gratuitous 
reprobation of partial grace, as the Scriptures do, is the only way to 
open the eyes of candid Calvinists, to keep the simple from drinking 
into their plausible error, and to rescue the multitude of passagesj on 
which they found their absolute, gratuitous predestination to eternal life 
and eternal death. I say it again, rigid Calvinism is the child of con- 
fusion, and lives merely by sucking its mother’s corrupted milk. Would 
you destroy the brat, only kill its mother: destroy confusion: “ divide 
the word of God aright :” and thus lead the rigid Predestinarians to the 
truth—the delightful truth, whence their error has been derived “ by the 
mistake or sleight of men, and by the cunning craftiness whereby the 
spirit of error lies in wait to deceive,” and you will destroy the Antino- 
mian election, and the cruel reprobation which pass for Gospel. In 
order to this, you strike at those serpents with the swords of your mouths, 
and cry out, “Absurd! unscriptural! horrible! diabolical!” But, by 
this means, you will never kill one of them: there is but one method to 


‘THIRD.] * BIBLE CALVINISM. 317 


extirpate them: hold out the partial election and reprobation maintained 
by the sacred writers. Throw your rod, like Moses, amidst the rods of 
the magicians. Let it first become a serpert, which you can take up 
with pleasure and safety: display the true partiality of Divine grace: 
openly preach the Scripture election of grace ; and boldly assert the 
gratuitous reprobation of inferior grace. So shall your harmless ser- 


-pent swallow up the venomous serpent of your adversaries. The true 


reprobation shall devour the false. Bigoted Calvinists will be confounded, 
hide themselves for fear of the truth: and candid Calvinists will see the 
finger of God, and acknowledge that your rod is superior to theirs, and 
that the harmless reprobation of inferior grace, which we preach, has 
fairly swallowed up the horrible reprobation of free wrath which they 
contend for. 

Be neither ashamed nor afraid of our serpent—our reprobation. 
Like Christ, it has not only the “wisdom of the serpent,” but also the 
“innocency of the dove :” you may handle it without danger: nay, you 
may put it into your bosom: and, instead of stinging you with despair, 
and filling you with chilling horrors, it will warm your soul with admi- 
ration for the manifold wisdom and variegated goodness of God: it will 
make you sharp sighted in the truth of the Gospel, and in the errors of 
overdoing evangelists. In the light of this truth you will, every where, 
See a glorious rainbow, where before you saw nothing but a dark cloud. 

When our serpent has had this blessed effect, you may take it out of 
your bosom for external use, and it will become a rod fit to chastise the 
errors of Pelagius and Augustine—of Calvin and Socinus. But use it 
with such gentleness and candour that all the spectators may see you do 
not deal in free wrath, and that there is as much difference between the 
gratuitous reprobation, which Calvin and Zanchius hold forth, and the 
gratuitous reprobation, which our blessed Lord and St. Paul maintain, as 
there is between the blasted dry rod of Korah, and the blossoming, fra- 
grant rod of Aaron; between a fire which gently warms your apartment, 
and one which rapidly consumes your house ; between the bright morn- 
ing star, inferior in light to the sun, and a horribly glaring comet, which 
draws its fiery tail over the earth to smite it with an eternal curse, and 
to drag, with merciless necessity, a majority of its frightened inhabitants 
to everlasting burnings. 

2. Our gratuitous reprobation is not a reprobation from all saving 
grace, as that of the Calvinists, but only from the superior blessings of 
saving grace. It is therefore as contrary to Calvinian reprobation, as 
initial salvation is contrary to insured damnation. It is perfectly con- 
sistent with the “ free gift which is to come,” in various degrees, “upon 
all men to justification.” We steadily assert, with Christ and St. Paul, 
that “the saving grace of God hath appeared to all men,” and that all 
the reprobates of superior grace, that is, all who are refused three, four, 
or five talents of grace receive two, or at least one talent of true and 
saving grace. There never was a spark of Calvinian free wrath in God 
against them. They are all redeemed with a temporal redemption. 
They have all an,accepted time, and a day of initial salvation, with 
sufficient means and helps to “work out their own efernal salvation,” 
according to their Gospel dispensation. We grant that God does not 
bestow upon them so many of his gratuitous favours as he does on his 


318 EQUAL CHECK. [part 


" peculiar people. But if he give them less, he requires the less of near : 
for he is too just to insist upon the improvement of five — from the | 
servants on whom he has bestowed but one talent. ‘a 

To understand this perfecily, distinguish between the two Gospel — 
axioms, or, if you please, between the doctrines of grace, and the doc- 
trines of justice. According to the former, God, with a partial hand, 
bestows upon us primary and merely gratuitous favours. And, accord- 
ing to the latter, he, with an impartial hand, imparts to us secondary 
and remunerative favours. God’s primary, and merely gratuitous favours, 
depend entirely on his partial grace: so far all Christians should agree 
with Calvin, and hold with him the doctrine of grace. But God’s 
secondary, remunerative favours depending on his rewarding grace, 
conditional promise, and distributive justice, depend of consequence in 
some degree on our free agency ; for our free will, by making a bad or 
good use of God’s primary favours, secures to us his righteous punish. 
ments, or gracious rewards, that is, his secondary favours. And hereim 
all Christians should agree with Arminius. By thus joining the peculiar 
excellencies of Calvinism and Arminianism, we embrace the whole 
Gospel, and keep together the doctrines of grace and justice, which the 
partial ministers of the two modern gospels rashly tear asunder. 

3. Many of the persons who have been reprobated from superior 
favours by partial grace, have been eternally saved by improving their 
one talent of inferior favour ; while some of those who had a large share 
in the election of distinguishing grace, are condemned for the non- 
improvement or abuse of the five talents which that grace had richly 
bestowed upon them. Who, for example, will dare say that Melchise- 
dec, Esau, Jonathan, and Mephibosheth, are damned because they were 
reprobated with respect to the peculiar favours which God bestowed ~ 
upon Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon? Or that Judas, Ananias, 
and Sapphira are saved, because they were all three chosen and called 
to the highest blessings which distinguishing grace ever bestowed upon 
mortals,—the blessings of the new covenant, which is the best covenant 
of peculiarity ; and because Judas was even chosen and called to the 
high dignity of the apostleship, in this excellent covenant ? 

4, We all know how fatal Calvinian reprobation must prove to those 
who are its miserable subjects. A man may be seized by the plague 
and live. But if that fatal decree, as drawn by some mistaken theolo- 
gists, seize on ten thousand souls, not one of them can escape: their 
hopes of salvation are sacrificed for ever. But the gratuitous election 
and reprobation, which the Scripture maintains, are attended with as 
favourable circumstances, as the elections and reprobations mentioned’ 
in the following illustrations :— 

While the sun is alone elected to gild the day, the moon, though 
reprobated from that honour, is nevertheless elected to silver the night, 
in conjunction with stars of different brightness. The “holy place” of 
the temple was reprobated, with respect to the glory of the “holy of 
holies :” it contained neither the cherubim, nor the mercy seat, nor the 
ark of the covenant; but yet it was elected to the henour of containing 
the golden altar, on which the incense was burned. The “ court of the 
priests” was reprobated from the honour of containing the golden altar, 
but yet it was freely elected to the honour of containing the brazen altar, 


ty 


THIRD.] BIBLE CALVINISM. 319 


. 


on which the sacrifices were offered. As for the “court of the Gen. 
tiles,” though it was reprobated from all these honourable peculiarities, 
yet it was elected to the advantage of leading to the brazen altar: and 
the Gentiles, who worshipped in this court, not only heard at a distance 
the music of the priest, and discovered the smoke, which ascended from 
the burnt offerings; but, when they looked through the open gates, they 
had a distant view of the brazen altar, of the fire which descended 
from heaven upon it, and of the lamb, which was daily consumed in that 
fire. And therefore they were no more absolutely reprobated from all 
interest in the daily sacrifice, than Caiaphas was absolutely elected to 
an imamissible interest in the daily oblation, in which his near attend- 
ance at the altar gave him the first right. Once more: the tribe of Levi 
was elected to the honour of doing the service of the sanctuary; an 
honour from which eleven tribes were reprobated. And, in that chosen 
tribe, the family of Aaron was elected to the priesthood and high priest- 
hood: peculiar dignities, from which the sons of Moses himself were all 
reprobaied. Now if it would be absurd to deduce Calvinian reprobation, 
and unavoidable damnation, from these elections; is it reasonable to 
deduce them, as the Calvinists do, from a gratuitous election to the dis- 
tinguishing blessings of the Jewish and Christian covenant ? 

5. The difference between the partial reprobation which the Holy 
Ghost asseris, and that which Calvin maintains, is so important, that I 
beg leave to make the reader sensible of it by one more illustration. 
God’s partial reprobation, which flows from his inferior favour, and not 
from free wrath, may be compared, (1.) To the king’s refusing a regi- 
ment of foot the advantage of riding on horseback—a free prerogative, 
which he grants to a regiment of dragoons. And, (2.) To his denying 


- to common soldiers the rank of captains; and to captains, the rank of 


colonels. But Calvin’s partial reprobation, which flows from free wrath, 
and has nothing to do with any degree of saving grace, may be com- 
pared to the king’s placing a whole regiment of marines in such dread- 
ful circumstances by sea and land, that all the soldiers, and officers, 
shall be sooner or later necessitated to desert, and to have their bras 
blown out for desertion; a distinguishing severity this, which will set 
off the distinguishing favour which his majesty bears to a company of 
favourite grenadiers, on whom he has absolutely set his everlasting love, 
and who cannot be shot for desertion, because they are tied to their 
colours by necessity,—an adamantine chain, which either keeps them 
from running away, or irresistibly pulls them back to their colours as 
often as they desert. Thus all the marines wear the badge of absolute 
free wrath; not one of them can possibly escape being shot; and the 
grenadiers wear the badge of absolute free grace ; not one of them can 
possibly be shot, let them behave in ever so treacherous a manner for 
ever so long atime. But, alas! my-illustration fails in the main point. 
When a soldier, who has been necessitated to desert, is shot, his punish- 
ment is over in a moment: but when a reprobate, who has been neces- 
sitated to continue in sin, is damned, he must go into a fire unquench. 
able, where “the, smoke of his torment shall ascend for ever and 
ever.” 

By these various answers candid Arminians will, I hope, be con- 
vinced, that, although Calvinian reprobation is unscriptural, irrational, 


320 EQUAL CHECK. 


ba. 


and cruel, the gratuitous election and reprobation maintained in 
preceding pages is truly evangelical, and, of consequence, perfect 
consistent with the dictates of sound reason and, pure morality, — 


\ fy 


BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 


ESSAY THE SECOND. 


Displaying the doctrines of impartial justice, the capital error of the 
Calvinists, and the excellence of Scripture Arminianism. oft 


Tue doctrines of impartial justice rest on these scriptures :—“I 
unto you, that to every one who hath [to a good purpose] more shall 
be given: and from him [the slothful servant] who hath not [to a good 
Bore even that he hath shall be taken away from him,” Luke xix, 
26. “Cursed is he that perverteth judgment,” Deut. xxvii, 19. 

These awful doctrines subdivide themselves into an impartial election, 
and an impartial reprobation ; both flowing from Divine justice, which 
is always irrespective of persons. 

The impartial election and reprobation of justice is the righteous and 
wise choice, which God, as an equitable and unbribed Jupex, makes, or 

refuses to make, of some persons, Churches, cities, and nations, judi- 
cially to bestow upon them, for Christ’s sake, gracious rewards accord- 
ing to his evangelical promises: or judicially to inflict upon them, for — 
righteousness’ sake, condign punishments, according to his reasonable — 
threatenings ; solemn promises and threatenings these, which St. Paul 
sums up in these words :—* God, in the revelation of his righteous judg- 
ment, will render to every man according to his deeds. ‘To them who, ~ 
by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, &c, eternal life: 
but to them that do not obey the truth, but obey wnrighteousness, he will 
render indignation and wrath: tribulation and anguish, upon every soul 
of man that doth evil, of the Jew [and Christian] first,” as having re- 
ceived more talents than others ; “and also of the Gentile ; [or heathen :] 
but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the 
Jew [and Christian] first,” as being God’s peculiar people, “and also 
to the heathens. For,” with regard to the doctrines of justice, “there _ 
is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without 
the law, [of a peculiar covenant,] shall also perish without the law, fof 
a peculiar covenant :] and as many as have sinned under the law, [of a 
peculiar covenant,] shall be judged by the law,” of the peculiar covenan 
they were under, whether it were “the law of Moses, or the law of 
Christ. For not the hearers, but the doers of the law shall be justified — 
in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my a 
Gospel.” And lest some should object that the heathens, having neither 
the law of Moses nor that of Christ, cannot be judged according to their 
works, the apostle intimates that they are under the law of the human — 


THIRD. ] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 321 


nature, which law is written upon every man’s conscience, by a beam 
of “the true light, that enlightens every man that comes into the world. 
For when the heathens,” says he, “which have not the law, do by 
nature, [assisted by the general light above mentioned,] the things con- 
tained in the written law [of Moses or of Christ, ] these, having not the 
written law, are a law unto themselves; and show the work of the law 
written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their 
thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another,” as a 
pledge and earnest of the condemnation or justification which awaits 
them before the throne of justice, Rom. ii, 5, 16. 

And let none say that this is St. James’ legal doctrine, into which St. 
Paul had slided unawares, through “the legality which cleaves to our 
nature ;” for the evangelical prophet is as deep in it as the herald of 
free grace. Hear Isaiah :—“Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be 
well with them; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings: wo to the 
wicked, it shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shail be 
given him,” Isa. iii, 10,11. If Isaiah be accused of haying imbibed this 
anti-Solifidian doctrine, like legal Ezekiel, I reply, that our Lord himself 
was as deep in it as Ezekiel and St. James; witness his last charge :— 
* Behold, [ come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every 
man according as his work shall be. Blessed are they that do his 
commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may 
enter into the heavenly city of God: tor without are dogs, &c, [all 
manner of evil workers,] and whosoever loveth or maketh a lie,” Rev. 
xxii, 12,15. The “few names in Sardis which have not defiled their 
garments, shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy,” Rev. in, 
4, “Watch ye, &c, that you may be counted worthy to escape all 
these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man,” 
Luke xxi, 37. 

The election of justice is then nothing but the impartiality with which 
God makes choice of his good and faithful servants, rather than of his 
wicked and slothful servants, to bestow upon them the temporal and 
eternal rewards of goodness and faithfulness, according to their works ; 
when he “cometh and zeckoneth with them,” about the talents which 
his free grace hath bestowed upon them, Matt. xxv, 19. Nor is the 
reprobation of justice any thing but the impartiality with which God, as 
a righteous dispenser of his punishments, reprobates from his rewards 
of grace and glory his wicked and unfaithful servants, who do not use, 
or who vilely abuse the talents which his free grace hath entrusted 
them with. 

When God “commands the servants, to whom he hath given his 
pounds, to be called to him, that he may know how much every man 
has gained by trading,” in order to bestow his evangelical rewards with 
equity ; according to the election of justice, he makes choice of the 
servants who have gained something with their pounds, rather than of 
the servant who has slothfully “laid up his pound in a napkin.” And 
according to the reprobation of justice, he reprobates from all rewards, 
and appoints to a deserved punishment the unprofitable and slothful ser- 
vant, rather than the faithful and diligent servants, who have improved 
their Lord’s gifts. Once more: according to the election of justice, 
God elects and calls to a double reward his servants who have given 


Vor. Il. 21 


‘ 


322 EQUAL CHECK. [Pak 


double diligence to make their gratuitous election sure. Thus he elects 

to the honour of “being ruler over TEN cities,” the man whose pound 
“had gained Ten pounds,” rather than the man whose pound had only” 
gained five pounds, and who, by the rule of equitable proportion, is only 
placed over five cities, Luke xix, 15, &c. And, according to the repro- 

bation of justice, in the day of judgment it shall be more intolerable for 

unbelieving Chorazin and Bethsaida, than for Sodom and Gomorrah ; 
and for unbelieving London and Edinburgh, than for Chorazin and 
Bethsaida; because they bury more talents, resist brighter light, and sin 
against richer dispensations of Divine grace, Matt. x, 15. 

With regard to the election and reprobation of justice, “ there is abso. 
lutely no respect of persons with God :” and evangelical worthiness, which 
dares not show its head before the throne of God’s partial grace, may 
lift it up with humble confidence before the throne of Christ’s remunera- 
tive justice. Hence it is that St. Paul, who so strongly asserts in Rom. 
ix. that, before the throne of partial grace, “it is not of him that willeth, 
nor of him that runneth, but of God who showeth merey,” or favour, 
when, and in what degree he pleases, does not scruple to say, when he 
is going to appear before the mediatorial throne of Divine justice, “ The 
time of my departure is at hand: I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up 
for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, 
shall give me at that day: when he shall render eternal life to them who 
seek for glory, by patient continuance in well doing,” 2 Tim. iv, 6, &c; 
Rom. ii, 7. 

The doctrine of proper merit, or merit of condignity, is unscriptural, 
irrational, and wild. ‘The bare thought of it might make an innocent 
angel blush before his Creator, and should fill a reprieved sinner with 
the greatest detestation. And yet the doctrine of improper or evangelical 
worthiness is of so great importance, that if you take it away, you eclipse 
‘God’s distributive justice ; you destroy the law of Christ, and all the 
conditional promises and threatenings in the Bible ; you demolish all the 
doctrines of personal rewards and punishments, together with the judg- 
ment seat of Christ; and upon their ruins you raise an Antinomia 
Babel, whose dreadful foundation is finished, or necessary damnation fo 
the millions of Calvin’s absolute reprobates ; while its airy top is finished, 
or necessary salvation for all his absolute elect. 

Hence it appears that the mistake of heated Calvin is exactly contrary 
to that of heated Pelagius. Pelagianism throws down the throne of 
God’s partial grace, and rigid Calvinism leaves no foundation for the 
throne of his impartial justice. The former of these modern gospels 
shackles God our Benefactor; and the latter pours infamy upon God 
our Judge. It fixes upon him the astonishing inconsistency of finally 
judging mén according to their works, and yet of finally justifying ther 
without any regard to their works ; and by this mean it indirectly give: 
the lie to our Lord himself, who says, “In the day of judgment by thy 
words thou shalt be justified or condemned.” 

Having thus described the impartial election and reprobation of justice, 
for which the Calvinists substitute a partial election of lawless grace in 
Christ, and a partial reprobation of free wrath in Adam ; I support the doc- 
-trines of justice by the following appeals to Scripture and matter of fact -— 


THIRD. | BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 323 


Search the Scriptures, for they bear testimony to the equity of God, 
our rewarder and punisher. If he praises and rewards one man rather 
than another, this difference flows from the holiness of his nature. which 
makes “his judicial ways equal.” He “loves righteousness and hates 
iniquity ;” and therefore he judicially «chooses the man that is godly,” 
while he judicially reprobates the man that is ungodly. If a veil, as 
thick as that which is upon the Jews, were not upon us when we read 
the Scriptures, would we not confess that God’s judicial reprobation 


_impartially turns upon our not receiving the truth, and not living up to 


it, that is, upon our voluntary unbelief, and the unnecessitated disobe- 
dience which flows from it? 

Does not the experience of all ages confirm this assertion? When 
creating grace had gratuitously elected and called Adam to the enjoy- 
ment of a paradisiacal kingdom, did not impartial and remunerative 
justice put the stamp of Divine approbation upon his faith and obedience, 
by equitably continuing him in that kingdom till he sinned? And did 
not impartial justice seal him with the seal of reprobation, when he had 
sinned? Hear the reprobating decree :—“ Because thou hast hear- 
kened to the voice of thy wife, &c, cursed is the ground for thy sake. 
Tuererore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden,” Genesis iii, 
17, 23. 

When redeeming grace had reprieved him, and his posterity, did 
Divine approbation and reprobation €alvinistically fasten upon their 
children? Did not the judicial difference, which God made between 
Cain and Abel, spring merely from the personal faith of Abel, and the 
excellence of his sacrifice? Hear Moses and St. Paul :—« The Lord 
had respect to Abel and his offering: but to Cain and his offering he 
had not respect. For by rarrn Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice 


than Cain.” Thus the Lord had respect to Cornelius and his charity. 


“His prayers and alms came up for a memorial before God :” but to the 
Pharisees, their prayers and alms “he had not respect :” for, by faith 
in his light, Cornelius offered more excellent prayers and alms than the 
Pharisees. “By which he,” like Abel, “ obtained witness that he was 
righteous and accepted :”’ God, by the angel, “ testifying” of his gifts. 
“ And, by it, he, being “dead, yet speaketh” to all Solifidians, who would 
banish the election and reprobation of justice out of the world. 

Righteous Seth succeeds righteous Abel: his children do the works 
of God, and are, of consequence, the elect of his justice, as well as of 
his grace. But as soon as these pious sons of God begin to draw back, 
and to follow the worldly ways of the daughters of men, they begin to 
rank among the reprobates of justice, and are involved in their dreadful 
punishment. Through the apostasy of these sons of God, “the earth 
was soon corrupt before God:” and yet “Noah was a just man, perfect in 
his generation, and Noah walked with God.” Therefore when a decree 
of judicial reprobation went forth against “the world of the ungodly,” a 
decree of judicial election was made in his favour: “and the Lord said 
to Noah, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark; for thee I have 
seen righteous before me in this generation,’ Gen. vii; 1. Ham, the 
father of Canaan, shared in the election which saved Noah ; but, by his 
flagrant violation of the fifth commandment, he soon brought upon him- 
aelf a judicial reprobation. 


324 EQUAL CHECK. . [Part 


A degree of vindictive reprobation passes against Sodom, but the sacred 


historian, who informs us of it, sets his pen, ‘like a bar of brass, against — 


the Calvinian doctrine of free wrath : nay, God himself condescends to 
speak in our language on that awful occasion. ‘The Lord said, Because 


the cry of Sodom is great, I will go down now, and, [before I judicially ; 


reprobate it,] I will see whether they have done altogether according to 
the cry of it, and if not, I will know,” Gen. xviii, 20. So far is the 
Lord from judicially reprobating his creatures otherwise than according 
to works, that is, according to evangelical worthmess or unworthiness. 

Agreeably to the same doctrine of justice, God showed favour to 
righteous Lot, rather than to the wicked inhabitants of Sodom, For “ it 
came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God 
remembered Abraham,” and his cogent plea: (“ Wilt thou [reprobate 
and] destroy the righteous with the wicked? That be far from thee, 
to do after this manner! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ?”) 
“And accordingly God sent Lot out of the “tnidst of the overthrow.” 

His wife shared in this election of justice, for the angels “laid hold 
upon her hand,” and extended to her the same favour which they did to 
her husband. But as soon as she looked back, and broke the command. 
ment, “ Look not behind thee,” she forfeited her election: reprobation 
laid hold on her, and she became a monument of God’s judicial impar- 
tiality. 

Aithoush God’s distinguishing grace shines in his calling Abraham to 
be a father of his peculiar people ; yet the election of justice soon goes 
hand in hand with the election of grace. How striking are these anti 
Solifidian passages! I will perform the oath which I sware to 


Abraham thy father, &c, pecause that Abraham obeyed my voice, and. 


kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws,” Gen 
xxvi, 3,5. Did notyGod judicially elect that faithful patriarch to the 
rewards of grace, when he said, “ By myself have I sworn; BECAUSE 
thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thine only son, that in 
blessing I will bless thee, because thou hast obeyed my voice?” Gen, 
xxii, 16, 18. Do not these scriptures prove that if Abraham had not 
made his election of peculiar favour sure, by obeying God’s voice, he 
would have forfeited that election as well as Saul and Judas ? 

But to return to the election of justice: does not this election extend, 
m some degree, even to the children of the godly? When God had 
said to Abraham, according to the reprobation of inferior grace, “ Cast 
out the bond woman and her son” Ishmael, did he not say also, aceord- 
ing to the election of justice, “ For Ishmael I have heard thee : behold, I 
have blessed him—because he is thy seed ?” Gen. xvii, 20 ; xxi, 13. And 
is not the decree of this remunerative election openly written by David, 
where he says, “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord: his seed 
shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be 
blessed ?” 

A striking instance of the impartial reprobation of justice we have in 
the Amorites and Israelites, the two nations to which God, according to 
the election of special favour, successively gave the good land of Canaan. 
God’s justice would not absolutely reprobate the Amorites from it, till 
they had sinned out their day of national salvation, or squandered away 
all the time which he had allotted them for national repentance. “I 


4 


po 


YHIRD.] . BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 325 


brought thee out of Ur to give thee this land,” said Goa to Abraham, 
but thy posterity shall not immediately inherit it, “for the iniquity of 
the Amorites is not yet full,” Gen. xv, 16. And God was exactly as 
equitable to’ the corrupted Israelites, as he had been to the corrupted 
Canaanites ; for he would not drive the Jews out of the land of Canaan, 
till they were quite ripe for that national reprobation. Hence it is, that 
our Lord, by nationally sparing them, suffered them also to “ fill up the 
measure of their iniquities,” Matt. xxui, 32. 

To return: God says to Abraham, “ I will judge the oppressive nation, 
whom the Israelites shall serve ;” and accordingly he judicially repro- 
bates Rahab and the dragon—Egypt and Pharaoh. But is Rahab struck 
with any plague, is the river turned into blood, before its waters have 
been mixed with the briny tears, and tinged with the innocent blood of 
the children of God’s people? Is Pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea, or 
hardened, before he has hardened his own heart, by setting his seal to 
the most cruel decrees, and by drowning the helpless posterity of Joseph, 
who had been the deliverer of his kingdom? 

Proceed to the book of Numbers, and you see at large the awful 
account, which St. Jude and St. Paul sum up in thee words :—* I will 
put you in remembrance that the Lord having saved the people out of 
the land of Egypt,” through obedient faith, “ afterward destroyed them 
that believed not,” Jude 5. For “ our fathers did all drink of the spirit- 
ual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ.” But, because 
they did not all secure the gracious rewards of justice, notwithstanding 
their election of grace, “ with many of them God was not well pleased, 
for they were overthrown in the wilderness” by the plague, by serpents, 


‘by the destroyer. <“‘ Now all these things happened to them,” the elect 


of distinguishing grace, “ and they are written for our admonition,” lest 
we should not make our election of justice sure by the works of faith : 
“ Wherefore let him that thinketh he sufficiently standeth,” by the elec- 
tion of partial grace, “ take heed lest he fall” into sin, which draws after 
it the reprobation of impartial justice, 1 Cor. x, 1, &c. 

As a proof that, with respect to the election: of justice, God is no 
respecter of persons, I produce Moses and Aaron, the great prophet and 
the high priest of the Jewish dispensation. They are both elected and 
called to inherit the land of Canaan; but not making this calling and 
election sure, they are both reprobated with respect to that inheritance. 
The adult Israelites share their reprobation. Of several hundred thou- 
sand, none but Caleb and Joshua make their election to that favour sure. 

Joshua and a new generation of Israelites obey; Jordan is parted: 
Jericho and her wicked inhabitants are destroyed. But Rahab and her 
friends, although they were Canaanites, are elected to partake of a 
peculiar deliverance, because “ she had received the messengers” with 
hospitable kindness, James ii, 25. On the other hand, Achan, one of 
those who were interested in the covenant of peculiarity, hides the wedge 
of gold, and the reprobation which Rahab’s hospitality had averted 
lights on him for his covetousness. She is blessed as a daughter of 
Abraham, and he is destroyed as a cursed Canaanite. 

_ After Jozqua’s death, God’s chosen people corrupted themselves. 

“ And the angel of the Lord came and said, I made you to go up out 

of Egypt, and have brought you into the land, which I sware to your 
> 


826 EQUAL CHECK. . [parr 


fathers: and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.” Here 
is the election of grace! “ But ye have not obeyed my voice. Where- 


fore I also said, I will not drive out the inhabitants of the land before — 


you. They forsook the Lord, and served Baal. And the anger of the 
Lord was hot against them: whithersoever they went out, the hand of 
the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had sworn unto them,” 
Judges ii, 1, 15. Here is the reprobation of justice ! 

I have already mentioned how Phinehas’ zeal procured his election to 
the highest dignity in the Church militant, and how Eli’s remissness 
caused his reprobation from that dignity, and entailed degradation and 
wretchedness upon his family. As for Saul, “ when he was little in his 


——— _ 


own sight, God gratuitously made him the head of the tribes of Israel.” _ 


But when he grew proud and disobedient, “ God judicially rejected 


or reprobated him from being king.” In his days the Kenites were — 


predestinated to be delivered from death, “ because they showed kind- 


ness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt:” 


while the Amalekites, their neighbours, were appointed for utter destrue- 
tion, because “ they laid wait for Israel in the way, when he came up 
from Egypt,” 1 Sam. xv, 2, 6. 

Although the Lord balled David, rather than Jonathan, to the crown 
of Israel, ‘according to the election of grace ;"he nevertheless preferred 
David to his brother Eliab according to the election of justice! “Samuel,” 
says the historian, “ looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord’s anointed 
is before him: but the Lord said, Look not on his countenance, or on 
the height of his stature, because I have refused [reprobated] him: for 
the Lord seeth not as man seeth, for the Lord looketh on the heart; to 
this man will I look, who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth 
at my word,” 1 Sam. xvi, 6, 7, and Isa. Ixvi, 2. And therefore when 
Saul was rejected, Samuel said to him, “ God hath chosen a man after 
his own heart ; a neighbour that is better than thou,” 1 Sam. xv, 28. 

“ Solomon loved the Lord, and said to him, Thou hast showed unto 
my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in upright, 
ness of heart, d&c, and now, O Lord, I am but a little child, &e, give 
therefore thy servant an understanding heart. And the speech pleased 
the Lord: and God said to him, Because thou hast asked this thing, 
and not riches, &c, lo, ] have given thee a wise and understanding heart, 
and [ have also given thee [or elected thee to receive] that which thou 
hast not asked, both riches and honour,” 1 Kings iii, 3, &e. Here we 
see young Solomon, by the power of assisted free will, trading so wisely 
with his one talent of initial wisdom, as to increase in wisdom above all 
his contemporaries. And yet when he was old, and had got ten talents 


of wisdom, he “ hid them,” not indeed “ in a napkin,” but ‘in the lap of — 


the strange, idolatrous women whom he had collected. A demonstration 
this, that man is endued with freedom of will, and that, as free grace did 


(pm I 


not necessitate Solomon to choose wisdom in his youth, neither did free 


wrath necessitate him to choose folly in his old age. 


To return: Divine mercy gently holds out her sceptre to some men — 


whom the Calvinists generally consider as absolute reprobates, while 
Divine justice awfully brandishes her sword against other men whom 
the Calvinists consider as absolute elect. Take a proof or two of the 
former part of this proposition. : 


THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 327 


Cain’s countenance falls; anger, the parent of murder, is conceived 
in his envious heart: but God addresses him with the gentleness of a 
father, and the mildness of a friend. The wretch, notwithstanding, 
imbrues his hand in his brother’s blood: but the goodness and patience 
of God endure yet daily, and secure the frighted murderer a long day of 
grace, by threatening a sevenfold punishment to the man that should 
slay him. Wicked Ahab repents in part, and God in part reverses the 
decree of his judicial reprobation. “'The word of the Lord came to 
Elijah, saying, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? I 
will not bring the evil in his days upon his house.” What is such a 
decree as this, but a judicial reprobation, tempered by a judicial election? 

Take one or two proofs of the latter part of the proposition. David 
numbers the people to indulge his vanity, and God gives him the choice 
of the decrees of reprobation from his special favour. He sins in the 
matter of Uriah: a decree of death goes forth against his child, and of 
slaughter against his family. Hezekiah’s heart is lifted up: he looks at 
his wealth with self complacence, and a decree of poverty and captivity 
is made against his house. 

What were these severe judgments, but the marks and effects of a 
judicial reprobation from the peculiar favour which God had for these 
pious kings ? : 

I have observed in the former Essay how partial grace favoured bloody 
Manasseh, in lengthening out his day of grace: but his election of grace 
did not hinder the election and reprobation of justice from having their 
free course. ‘Take first an account of this reprobation : “ And the Lord 
spake, &c, saying, Because Manasseh hath done these abominations, 
é&c, therefore behold I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem, that 
whosoever heareth it, both his ears shall tingle,’ &c. Take next an 
account of Manasseh’s judicial election: “ When he was in affliction, he 
besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God 
of his fathers, and prayed to him, and he heard his supplication, [reversed 
in part the decree of his judicial reprobation,] and brought him again to 
Jerusalem into his kingdom. His prayer also, and how God was 
entreated of him, &c, behold they are written, &c. Amon did eyil as 
did Manasseh his father, but humbled not himself, as Manasseh had 
humbled himself,” 2 Chron. xxxiii, 12-23. 

The New Testament gives us the same views of God’s righteous 
reprobation. Judas, one of those whom “the Father had given to 
Christ,” John xvii, 12,— Judas, whom Christ himself had chosen or elected, 
John vi, 70,—Judas, for whom he designed one of the twelve brightest 
thrones in glory, Matt. xix, 28,—Judas “ by transgression fell,” and was 
lost, or to speak according to the Hebrew idiom, became a “ son of 
perdition,” Acts i, 25; John xvii, 12. “He loved cursmg more than 
blessing,” and it judicially “ entered like oil” into his bones. The decree 
of reprobation, which had prophetically gone forth, according to God’s 
foresight of his crime, now goes forth judicially. He is his own execu- 
tioner, and another fills his vacated throne. Herod does not give glory 
to God. A decree of reprobation overtakes him, and worms eat him up. 
Regardless of the starving poor, the rich farmer fills his barns, and the 
rich glutton his belly, and a decree similar to that which sealed drunken 
Belshazzar’s doom is made against them. “The Jewish builders reject 


328 EQUAL CHECK. [PART 


the corner stone,” and Christ says, “ The kingdom of God shall be taken 
from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.’ The 
master of the vineyard comes three years to seek fruit on his fig tree : 
but, finding none, he judicially reprobates the barren nuisance at last. 
And patience, which suspends a year the execution of the sentence, 
offers to seal herself the decree of reprobation, if the tree continues 
barren to the end of the year of reprieve. ‘The wicked servant beats 
his fellow servants: the foolish virgins provide no supply of oil: the 
uncharitable will not give drink to the thirsty; and therefore they all 
fall a righteous sacrifice to Divine justice. The Gospel feast is provided, 
and “ all things are now ready.” Multitudes of*men are chosen and 
called to come to the feast, but their frivolous excuses engage the king 
to reprobate them. Hear the decree of their judicial reprobation, taken 
down by three sacred writers :—* I: say unto you, that none of those 
men which were bidden [and refused to come in time] shall taste of my 


supper,” Luke xiv, 24. “The wedding is ready, but they which were. 


bidden were not worthy,” Matt. xxii, 8. “I was grieved with that 
generation, and said, They do always err in their heart, &c. So I 
sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest,’ Heb. iii, 10. 
These decrees breathe nothing but just wrath kindled by an obstinate 
contempt of free grace. From these, and the like Scripture examples, 


a 


it is evident, that a personal reprobation of justice is an awful and true — 


doctrine ; and that a personal, Calvinian reprobation of free wrath is as 
unscriptural as it is, cruel and absurd. 

Who can read the Scriptures without prejudice, and not see that the 
election and reprobation of partial favour yield to the election and 
reprobation of impartial justice? Although God chose and called 
Abraham out of distinguishing grace, did he not extend his mercy far 
beyond the little circle of that narrow calling and election? Did he set 
his love upon the father of the faithful and his posterity in such a manner 
that there was nothing but blind mercy for the favoured seed of Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, and nothing but free wrath, and Calvinian repro- 


bation, for all who were reprobated with respect to that election? ~ 


What shall we say of conscientious Abimelech, venerable Melchisedec, 


patient Job, and his pious friends, for whom “God was entreated?” — 
What of Bethuel, Rebekah’s father? What of Asenath, an Egyptian — 
woman, the wife of Joseph? What of prudent Jethro, and his daughter, — 


the wife of Moses? What of the submissive Gibeonites, whose part 
God so eminently took, against the children of Israel and the house of 
Saul? What of loving Ruth, a daughter of Moab? What of the 
inquisitive queen of Sheba, and the Sidonian widow, who had charity 
enough to share her last morsel with Elijah, a hungry and desolate 
stranger? What of grateful Naaman, the Syrian, whom the prophet 
sent away in peace, when he entailed a curse upon Gehazi, the lying 
Israelite? What of humbled Nebuchadnezzar, who was restored to his 
former greatness, in as wonderful a manner as patient Job, and penitent 
Manasseh? What of the wise men, who came from the east; and the 
treasurer of Queen Candace, who came from the south, to worship in 
Judea? What of the importunate woman of Canaan, the zealous 
woman of Samaria, and the charitable Samaritan, who had compassion 
on the wounded man, the “poor creature,” whom the elect priest had 


SS 


“THIRD. | BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 3829 


reprobated, and whom the chosen Levite had passed by? Had God 
absolutely no respect to their repentance, faith, and charity? Was 
there never a “well done! thou good and faithful servant,” for any of 
them? Shall “a cup of cold water,” given in Christ’s name, have its 
reward; and shall not the oil and the wine of the non-elect Samaritan, 
given in the name of humanity, divinity, mercy, love, truth, and right- 
eousness, (six of Christ’s sweetest names,) shall not, I say, that “ wine 
and oil” have their reward? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? 
Hath he shut up his remunerative kindness in displeasure? Is there 
nothing but vindictive free wrath for all that are not interested in the 
peculiar “covenants of promise,” made with Abraham, Moses, and 
“the High Priest of our profession?” And nothing but flaming love for 


Nadab, Ahihu, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, Demas, Hymeneus, Philetus, 


Alexander, and Diotrephes, who so eminently shared in the Jewish and 
Christian covenants of peculiarity ? 4 

If you say, with St. Paul, “All are not trwe Israelites who are 
of Israel,” you grant what we contend for: you allow that all 
are not the elect of God’s impartial justice, who are the elect 
of his partial favour; and that finally the scale will turn for the 
retribution of eternal life or eternal death, according to the elec- 
tion or reprobation of impartial justice, and not according to the 
election of partial grace, and the reprobation of free wrath. Who 
had ever a larger share in the election of partial grace than David? 
And yet, who ever maintained the election and reprobation of 
justice more strongly than he? Does he not still ery to all the world, 
from the walls of Jerusalem, “Verily, there is a reward for the 
righteous, [of whatever family, tribe, or religion he be :] doubtless there 
is a God that judgeth the earth?” Does not every body know, that to 
judge the earth is to justify, or condemn all its inhabitants, according 
to their works? And when God finally justifies or condemns, what does 
he do but declare that the godly are evangelically worthy of walking 
with him in white, and of following him to fountains of living water ; and 
that the ungodly are every way worthy to depart with the devil, and 
follow him into the lake of fire ? 

I have observed that the election of partial grace extends to cities and 
nations ; and so does the reprobation of impartial justice. Take one or 
two remarkable instances of it. According to the election of distin- 
guishing favour, God “chose Jerusalem to put his name there.” But 
when Jerusalem showed herself absolutely unworthy of his judicial elec- 
tion, he reprobated her in righteousness. Hear the awful decree :—“I 
will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons. The houses of 
Jerusalem shall be defiled as Tophet,” Jer. ix, 11; xix, 13. The mild 
Jesus, after a last effort to “ gather her children, as a hen gathers her 
brood,” with a flood of tears, pronounces the final sentence of her judi- 
cial reprobation: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the pro- 
phets,—there shall not be left in thee one stone upon another, that shall 
not be thrown down.” 

The gratuitous election, and the judicial reprobation of Jerusalem, 
are typical of the gratuitous election of the Israelites, and of their judi- 
cial reprobation. An account of their gratuitous election is set before 
the reader in the Essay on Scripture Calvinism. Here follows an 


330 EQUAL CHECK. (PART 


account of their righteous reprobation :—* And it shall come to pass, 
if thou shalt hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord thy God, to 
observe all his commandments, that the Lord will set thee on "high: all 
these blessings shall overtake thee; the Lord shall establish thee a holy 
people to himself, as he hath sworn to thee. But it shall come to 
pass, if thou wilt not hearken, &c, that all these curses shall overtake 
thee, &c. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, until thou be 
destroyed, and until thou perish quickly, because of all the wickedaess 
of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me,” Deut. xxviii, 20, 
Again: ‘See, I have set before thee life and good, and death ana evil, 
in that I command thee to love the Lord thy God, that thou mayest live. 
But if thine heart turn away, &c, I denounce unto you this day, that ye 
shall surely perish,” Deut. xxx, 15, &c. Here are the decrees of 
God’s judicial election and reprobation. According to these decrees, 
David says to his elect son, “ Solomon, my son, serve the God of thy 
father with a willing mind. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee : 
but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever. Take heed now, 
for the Lord hath chosen thee to build a house,” &c, 1 Chron. xxviii, 9. 
According to these decrees, “‘ Because of all the provocations, &c, the 
Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed 
Israel, and I will cast off this city Jerusalem, which I haye chosen, and 
the panes of which I said, My name shall be there,” 2 Hings Xxiil, 
26, 27. 

It is only to defend the election and reprobation of justice that St. 
Paul says, “God hath not cast away his [believing, obedient] people 
whom he foreknew,” that is, foreapproved as believing, and obedient : 
for, as there were seven thousand believing and obedient Jews, upon 
whom impartial justice smiled in the days of Jezebel, under the Jewish 
election of partial grace; “even so at this present time,” adds the 
apostle, ‘‘ there is a remnant” of such Jews under the Christian election 
of partial grace. That is, a number of Jews make their Christian elec. 
tion sure, not by the works of the Mosaic law, but by obedient faith in 
Christ. And even these obedient believers, in conjunction with the con- 
verted Gentiles, the apostle keeps in their duty by threatening them with 
reprobation of impartial justice. ‘‘ Because of unbelief,” says he, “they 
[the unbelieving Jews] were broken off, [that is, judicially reprobated,] 
and thou [Christian believer] standest by faith. Be not high minded, but 
fear. For if God spared not the natural branches ; [so inflexible is his 
justice !] take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold, therefore, the 
goodness and severity of God: on them that fell [the Jews elected 
through distinguishing grace] severity; but toward thee [a Christian, 
elected by distinguishing faveur] goodness, if thou continue in his good. 
ness, by continuing in the faith of Christ ; otherwise thoushalt also be 
cut off,” notwithstanding thy Christian election of distinguishing grace. 
« And they,” notwithstanding their present reprobation of justice, which 
is occasioned by their unbelief, “if they abide not still in unbelief, shall 
be grafted in:” that is, if they make their Christian calling and election 


of grace sure by the obedience of faith, they shall be numbered among — 


the rewardable elect, the elect that do not perish, the elect of justice as 
well as of grace, Rom. xi, 1-23. 
The apostle frequently speaks the same anti-Calvinian language : take 


THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. ' 331 


one or two more instances of it: “The end of those things is death,” 
that 1s, final reprobation from life. “But, &c, ye have your fruit unto 
holiness, and the end [of this fruit is a judicial election to] everlasting 
life: for the wages of sin is death,” that is, a judicial reprobation from 
life, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ :” an 
invaluable gift, which the Redeemer has procured, and which shall be 
judicially bestowed upon obedient, persevering believers, as the king’s’ 
purses and plates, which are the mere gifts of his majesty, are equitably 
bestowed upon them that so run as to obtain the prize. And, therefore, 
“so run,” says the apostle, “that ye may obtain an incorruptible crown. 
Be followers of me: I so run, &c, lest I myself should be cast away,” 
according to the reprobation of justice, 1 Cor. ix, 24, &c. 

The election and reprobation of partial grace depend entirely upon 
the wisdom and sovereignty of God. The great “ Potter hath power over 
the clay, to make of the same lump vessels to honour, or to comparative 
dishonour,” just as he pleases. As a supreme Benefactor, he had a 
right to raise the Jews above all nations, by calling them at the third 
hour into his enclosed vineyard. He could, without injustice, call the 
Corinthians at the sixth hour, and the English at the ninth hour. And 
if he call the Hottentots at the eleventh hour, they shall be entitled to the 
blessings of the richest election of grace, which are represented by the 
penny of the parable, as much as if they had been called as early as 
Abraham was; and had borne the burden and heat of the day as long 
as St. Paul and Cranmer did. I repeat it, with respect to the privileges 


_ of the covenants of promise made with the Jews and the Christians, 


which privileges our Lord sometimes calls his pence, and sometimes 
his talents ; they are ours as soon as we are called, if we do but answer 


_the call by going into the Lord’s vineyard or field. This is what Christ 


condescends to call our hire for going into his Church militant—our hire 
bestowed according to the election of prevenient grace. But our eternal 
reward shall be given according to a very different rule, namely, ac- 
cording to the election of impartial justice. ‘To secure this reward, we 
must not only go into the Lord’s field, when we are called; but we must 
sow as we are directed. “Be not deceived,” says the apostle when he 
stands up for the doctrines of justice ; as God does not necessitate man 
by Calvinian decrees of finished reprobation, and then mock him by Ar- 
minian offers of salvation: so he “is not mocked: for whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, 
shall of the flesh [naturally and judicially] reap corruption and destruc- 
tion: [the word has this double meaning in the original.] But he that 
soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting,” both by 
natural and judicial consequence. “ For the moral earth, which bringeth 
forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from 
God :” (“ Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom, &c, for I was hungry, 
and ye gave me meat.”) But that which beareth thorns and briers is 
rejected [reprobated] and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be 
burned,” according to the fearful sentence, “Depart, ye cursed, into 
everlasting fire, for I was hungry and ye gave me no meat,” &c, Gal. 
vi, 7; Heb. vi, 7; Matt. xxv, 34, &c. 

Well then might our Lord and St. Paul charge us to escape the repro- 
bation, and secure the election of justice. How awful and anti-Calvinian 


332 " EQUAL CHECK. | Part 


are their directions! “Watch and pray always, that ye may be accounted 
worthy to escape all these ¢errible things, and to stand rewardable before 
the Son of man,” Luke xxi, 36. ‘“ Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, 

as to the Lord: knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the al 
of the inheritance,” Col. iii, 24. of 

From these and a multitude of such scriptures it appears, that when 
the Calvinists overlook the impartial election and reprobation of distri- 
butive justice, they betray as much prejudice as the rigid Arminians do, 
when they deny the partial election and reprobation of distinguishing 
grace. ‘There is, however, some difference between the extensiveness 
of their errors. If rigid Arminianism rejects the partial election and 
reprobation of distinguishing grace, it strenuously maintains the right. 
eous election and reprobation of impartial justice; and, by this means, — 
it preserves one half of the doctrines of the Bible in all their purity, 
namely, the doctrines of justice. But rigid, downright Calyinism equally 
spoils the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice : for it turns the 
holy doctrines of special grace into Solifidian doctrines of lawless grace: 
and, wiih respect to the doctrines of impartial justice, it totally de- 
molishes them by allowing but of one eternal, absolute, partial, and 
personal election, which necessarily binds Christ’s righteousness, and 
finished salvation, upon some men; and of one eternal, absolute, partial, 
and personal reprobation, which necessarily fastens Adam’s unrighteous- 
ness, with finished damnation, upon all the rest of mankind. Now, 
according to these doctrines of partial grace and free wrath, it is evident 
that justice can no more be concerned in justifying or condemning, 
rewarding or punishing men under such circumstances, than you could 
be equitably concerned in crowning some men for swimming, and in — 
burning others for ginking; supposing you had first bound the elected — 
swimmers fast to an immense piece of cork, and tied a huge mill stone 
about the neck of the sinking reprobates. Hence it appears, that, 
although a Bible Christian may hold Pelagius’ election and reprobation 
of justice, he can neither hold Calvin’s one election of lawless grace, 
nor his one reprobation of free wrath. 

But, while I bear my plain testimony against rigid Calvinism, I beg — 
the reader to make a difference between that system and the good men 
who have embraced it. With joy I acknowledge that many Calvinist 
ministers have done much good in their generation. But whatever good 
they have done, was not done by their errors, but by the Gospel truths 
which they inconsistently mixed with their errors, and by God’s over- 
ruling their mistakes. The doctrines of distributive justice belong no 
more to rigid Calvinism, than to Nero’s private system of policy: but. 
as good magistrates, even under Nero’s authority, steadily punished vice, — 
and rewarded virtue ; so good men, who have the misfortune to be 
involved in rigid Calvinism, inconsistently deter men from sin by preach- 
ing the terrors of a sin-revenging God, and by pointing out the rewards 
of grace and glory, which await the faithful. Add to this, that by still 
holding out the law of God to the unawakened, though that kind of 
preaching is absurd upon their system, yet they do good, because, so 
far, they preach the doctrines of justice. And by preaching a “rule 
of life” to believers, they now and then meet with professors ingenuous 
enough to follow that rule. For, as there are even ia Billingsgate per- 


—————— ee 


THIRD. | BIBLE ARMINIANISM. 333 


sons cleanly enough to wash their hands, although their neighbours 
should constantly assure them that they can never get one speck of dirt 
off ; that the king must do it all away himself in the day of his power; 
that, in the meantime, his majesty sees no dirt upon their hands, because 
he looks at them only through the hands of the prince of Wales, which 
are as white as snow, and the cleanness of which his majesty is pleased 
to impute to their dirty hands ; and beside, that dirt will work for their 
good; will display the strength of their consti‘ution ; will set off, by and 
by, the cleansing virtue of soap and water ; and'Wwill make dirty people 
sing louder at court, when the king’s irresistible power, and their own 
deadly sweats, shall have cleansed their hands: as there are cleanly 
persons, I say, who would wash their hands notwithstanding such dirty 
hints as these; so there are some sincere souls among every denomina- 
tion of Christians, who hate sin, and depart from it, notwithstanding all 
that some mistaken theologists may say, to make them continue in sin, 
in order that the graces of humility and of faith in the atoning blood, 
may be abundantly exercised. 

Again: the rigid Arminians are greatly deficient in exalting God’s 
partial grace, and the rich election which flows to Christian believers 
from this grace. Now when the Calvinists preach to Christians a gra- 
tuitous election of distinguishing grace, though they do not preach it 
aright, yet they say many things which border upon the truth, and by 
which God sometimes raises the gratitude and comforts of some of his 
people ; overruling Calvin’s mistakes to their consolation, as he over- 
ruled to our comfort the high priest’s dreadful sentence: “ Ye know 


nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man 


should die for the people.” Never did a prophet preach the atonement 


more clearly than Caiaphas does in these words. Just so do pious Cal- 
vinists preach the election of grace, and in the same manner is their 
preaching overruled to the comfort of some. 

But alas! if this confused method of preaching election be indirectly 
helpful to a few, is it not directly pernicious to multitudes, whom it 
tempts to rise to the presumption of “ Mr. Fulsome,” or to sink to the 
despair of Francis Spira? Beside, would not doubting Christians be 
sufficiently cheered by the Scriptural doctrine of our election, as it is 
held forth in the Essay on Scripture Calvinism? Are those liquors 
best, which are made strong and heady by intoxicating and poisonous 
ingredients? Cannot the doctrine of our gratuitous electioa in Christ 
be comfortable, unless it be adulterated with Antinomianism, fatalism, 
Manicheism, and a reprobation, which necessarily drags most of our 
friends and neighbours into the bottomless pit? And might we not so 
preach our judicial elec'ion by Christ, and so point out the greatness 
of the helps, which the Gospel affords us to make our election sure, as 
to excite the careless to diligence without driving them upon the fatal 
rocks, wi‘h which the Solifidian Babel is surrounded ? 

From the preceding remarks it follows, that the error of rigid Cal- 
vinists centres in the denial of that evangelical liberty, whereby all men, 
under various dispensations of grace, may, without necessity, choose life 
in the day of their initial salvation. And the error of rigid Arminians 
consists in not paying a cheerful homage to redeeming grace, ‘or all the 
liberty and power which we have to choose life, and to ‘work righteous- 


334 EQUAL CHECK. _ [Part 


ness since the fall. Did the followers of Calvin see the necessary con- 
nection there is between the freedom of our will, and the distributive 
justice of God our Judge, they would instantly renounce the errors of 
Calvinian necessity, and rigid bound will. And did the rigid followers 
of Arminius discover the inseparable union there is, since the fall, be- 
tween our free agency to good, and the free redeeming grace of God 
our Saviour, they would readily give up the errors of Pharisaical self 
sufficiency and rigid free will. 

To avoid equally these two extremes, we need only follow the Serip- 
ture doctrine of free will restored and assisted by free grace. According 
to this doctrine, in order to repent, believe, or obey, we stand in need of 
a talent of power “to will and to do.” God, of his good pleasure, gives 
us this talent for Christ’s sake ; and our liberty consists in not being 
necessi‘ated to make a good or bad use of this talent, to the end of our 
life. But we must remember that, as this precious talent comes entirely 
from redeeming grace, so the right use of it is first of redeeming grace, 
and next of our own unnecessitated, though assisted free will; whereas 
the wrong use of it is of our own choice only ; an unnecessitated choice, 
which constitutes us legally punishable, as our right, unnecessitated 
choice of offered life (through God’s gracious appoimtment) constitutes 
us evangelically rewardable. 

Hence it follows that our accepted time, or day of salvation begun, 
has but one cause, namely, the mercy of God in Christ: whereas our 
continued and eternal salvation has two causes. The first of which isa 
primary and proper cause, namely, “the merey of God in Christ ;” 
the second is a secondary or improper cause, or, if you please, a con- 
dition, namely, “the works of faith.” Nor do some Calvinists seruple, 
any more than we, to call these works a cause, improperly speaking. 
Only, like physicians, who write. their prescriptions m Latin, to keep 
their ignorant patients in the dark, they call it Causa sine qua non ; 
that is, in plain English, a cause, Which, if it be absent, absolutely 
hinders an effect from taking place. ‘Thus a mother is not the primary 
cause of her child’s conception, but causa sine gua non; that is, such a 
cause as, if it had been wanting, would have absolutely prevented his 
being conceived. 

If the Calvinists will speak the truth in Latin, I will speak it in plain 
English. And therefore, standing up still as a witness of the marriage 
between prevenient free grace, and obedient free will; (an evangelical 
marriage this, which I have proved in the Scripture Scales ;) I assert, 
upon the arguments contained in these two Essays, that our eternal sal- 
vation depends, first, on-God’s free grace, and secondly, on our practical 
submission to the doctrines of grace and justice; or, if you please, on 
our making our election of grace and justice sure by faith and its works. 

To be a little more explicit: our day of saivation begun is merely of 
free grace, and prevents all faith and works ; since all saving faith, and 
all good works, flow from a beginning of oe salvation. But this is not 
the case with our continued and eternal salvation: for this salvation ; 
depends upon the concurrence of two causes; the first of which is pre- 
venient and assisting free grace, which I beg leave to call the father 
cause; and the second is submissive and obedient free will, which [ | 
take the liberty to call the mother cause. And I dare say that ihe Pe- 


- THIRD.] BIBLE ARMINIANISM. ) 335 


lagians will as soon find on earth an adult man who came to the world 
without a father; and that the Calvinists will as soon find one who was 
born without a mother, as they will find an adult person in heaven, who 
came there without the concurrence of free grace and free will, which I 
beg leave to call the paternal and maternal causes of our eternal salva- 
tion. And therefore, while the rigid Arminians and the rigid Calvinists 
make two partial, solitary, barren gospels, by parting mercy and justice, 
free grace and free will, let. Bible Christians stand up, in theory and 
practice, for the one entire Gospel of Christ. Let them marry pre- 
venting and assisting free grace with prevented and assisted free will ; 
so shall they consistently hold the two Gospel axioms, and evangelically 
maintain the doctrines of grace and justice, which are all suspended on 
the partial election and reprobation of distinguishing grace, and on the 
impartial tlection and reprobation of remunerative justice. 

Till we do this, we shall spoil the Gospel, by confounding the dis- 
pensations of Divine grace; we shall grieve those whom God has not 
grieved, and comfort those whom God would not have comforted; we shall 
involve the truth in clouds of darkness; and availing ourselves of that 
darkness, we shall separate what God has joined, and join what he has 
separated ; causing the most unnatural] divisions and monstrous mixtures, 
and doing in the doctrinal world what the fallen Corinthian did in the 
moral, when he tore his mother from his father’s bosom, and made her 
his own incestuous wife. In a word, we shall tear the impariial elec- 
tion of justice from the partial election of grace ; and according to our 
Pelagian or Augustinian taste, we shall espouse the one, and fight against 
the other. If we embrace only the election of impartial justice, we 
shall propagate proud, dull, and uncomfortable Pelagianism. And if we 
embrace only the election of partial grace, we shall propagate wanton 
Antinomianism, and wanton cruelty, or absolute election to, and absolute 
reprobation from eternal life. We shall generate the conceits of 
finished salvation and finished damnation, which are the upper and 
lower parts of the doctrinal syren, whom Dr. Crisp mistock for the Gos- 
pel; the head and the tail of the evangelical chimera, which Calvin 
supposed to have sprung from “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” But, 
if we equally receive the election of grace and that of justice, we shall have 
the whole truth, as it is in Jesus—the chaste woman, who stands “in 
heaven clothed with the sun, and having the moon [Pelagian changes 
and Calvinian innovations] under her feet.” Nor will candid Christians 
be offended at her having two breasts, to give her children “the sincere 
milk of the word ;” and two arms, to defend herself against Pelagianism 
and Calvinism, the obstinate errors which attack her on the right hand 
and on the left. She has put forth her two arms in these two Essays ; 
and, if her adversaries do not resist her, as the Jews did Stephen by 
stopping their ears, it is to be hoped that some of them will impartially 
renounce the errors of heated Pelagius and heated Augustine, and will 
honour Christ both as their Saviour and their Judge, by equally em- 
bracing the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice. 


336 EQUAL CHECK. - [Parr 


SECTION V. or. 
Inferences from the two Essays. Me. 


Ir the preceding Essays on Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism 
are agreeable to Scripture and reason, 1 may sum up their contents m 
some inferences, the justness of which will, I humbly hope, Tecommnienlm 
itself to the reader’s good understanding and candour :— 

I. The doctrine of a gratuitous, partial, and personal election wil 
reprobation is truly Scriptural. So far Calvinism is nothing but the 
Gospel. On the other hand, the doctrine of a judicial, impartial, and — 
conditional election and reprobation is perfectly Scriptural also: and so 
far Arminianism is nothing but the Gospel. For, as light flows from 
the sun, so Bible Calvinism does from the first Gospel axiom, (our sal- 
vation is of God,) and as a river flows from its source, so Bible Arminian- 
ism does from the second Gospel axiom, (our destruction is of ourselves.) 
Confounding these two axioms and elections, or denying one of them, has 
greatly injured the doctrines of grace and justice, darkened all the Gos- 
pel dispensations, and bred the misunderstandings which formerly sub- 
sisted between the followers of Augustine and those of Pelagius, and 
now subsist between the Calvinists and the Arminians. 

If. It is absurd to ridicule the doctrine of a twofold election, under 
pretence that it flows from what some people are pleased to call “ the 
flights of my romantic pen ;” since the full tide of Seripture eviden 
flows in two channels ; an election of partial grace, according to whi 
God grants or denies his primary favours, as a SOVEREIGN BENEFACTOR 3 
and an election of impartial justice, according to which he bestows 
rewards or inflicts punishments, as a SUPREME JUDGE. 

Iil. Nor does this doctrine deserve to be called new, since it is so 
manifestly found in the oldest book in the world. An objection drawn 
from the seeming noyelty of these observations, would be peculiarly — 
unreasonable in the mouth of a member of the Church of England; be- 
cause she indirectly points out the distinc*ion which I contend for. 
That our reformers had some insight into the doctrine of a partial 
election of grace in Christ, and of an impartial election of justice through 
Christ, appears, I think, from the standard writings of our Church. — 
The beginning of her seventeenth article evidently countenances our 
unconditional election of grace in Christ, while the latter part secures the 
doctrines of our conditional election of justice through Christ. Few 
Calvinists will be so prejudiced as to deny that our Church guards the 
doctrines, and consequently the election of justice in this important para-— 
graph :—“‘ Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise ~ 
as they are generally set forth in Holy Scripture.” Now the Pr 
mises being generally set forth in a conditional manner in God’s word, — 
itis evident that our Church, in giving us this caution and charge, intends ~ 
to secure the conditionality of the election of justice; the ae 
of this election being inseparably connected with the conditionality « 
God’s promises ; just as the conditionality of the reprobation of justice — 
is inseparably connected with the conditionality of God’s threatenings. 

In conformity to this doctrine our Church assures us, in her homily — 
on good works, “If he [the elected thief] had lived, and not regarded = 


THIRD. | RECONCILIATION. 337 


faith and the works thereof, he would have lost his salvation again :” or, 
which comes to the same thing, he would have forfeited his election of 
partial grace, by losing the election of impartial justice. Our liturgy 
speaks the same language ; witness that prayer in the office of baptism: 
“ Grant that these children [or persons] now to be baptized, &c, may 
eyer remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord.” That is, grant that these persons, who are now 
admitted into thy Christian Church, according to the election of grace 
in Christ, may so believe and obey, zs never to forfeit the privileges of 
this election, but may ever share in the privileges of thy faithful chil- 
dren who are elect in every sense of the word; the obedient being 
the only persons who keep their part in the election of grace, and 
secure a share in the election of justice. Such complete elect are the 
“sheep” which “hear Christ’s voice, and follow his” steps. ‘None 
shall pluck them out of his hands.” - The talent of their election of 
grace shall never be taken from them: they ‘shall all hear these cheer- 


“ing words; “ Well done, thou good and faithful servant!” They shall 


all “ enter into the joy of their Lord,” and eternally share in the double 
privileges of the election of grace and justice. 

IV. The gratuitous, partial election and reprobation, which the Scrip- 
tures maintain, chiefly refer to the three grand covenants which God has 
made with man, and to the greater or less blessings which belong to these 
covenants. The first of these covenants takes in all mankind; for it 
was made with spared Adam after the fall, and confirmed to preserves 
Noah after the flood; and every body knows that Adam and Noah are 
the two general parents of all mankind. The second of these cove- 
nants was made with Abraham, ratified to Isaac and Jacob, ordained in 
the hands of Moses, and ordered in all things, and peculiarly insured to 
Dayid. This covenant takes in the first peculiar people of God, or the 
Jewish nation; and includes more particularly David and his family, 
of which the Messiah was to be born. The third of these covenants 
was made with Christ, as “the Captain of our salvation,” and “ the High 
Priest of our profession,” or dispensation ; and takes in God’s “ most 
peculiar people,” or the Christian Church. The first of these three 
covenants is general. ‘The other two are covenants of peculiarity, the 
former of which is frequently called, in Scripture, the old covenant, or 
the Old Testament, while the latter is spoken of by the name of the 
new covenant, or New Testament. The two first of these covenants 
were sealed with the blood of sacrificed beasts or circumcised men, 
but the last was sealed with the blood of the Lamb of God. Hence our 
Lord termed it “the new covenant in my blood,” Luke xxi, 20, 
calling his blood, “my blood of the New Testament,” Matt. xxvi, 28. 
Hence also the apostle observes, that “ Jesus was made a surety of a 
better Testament,” and that “ he is the Mediator of the New Testament,” 
which is far superior to that which “ was ordained by angels in the hand 
of Moses,” the mediator of the Old Testament: see Heb. vii, 22; ix, 
15; xu, 24; 2 Cor. iii, 6; Gal. iii, 19. 

V. These three grand covenants give birth to Gentilism, Judaism, and 
Christianity ; three Divine religions, or dispensations of grace, from the 
confounding of which partial divines have formed the schemes of reli- 
gion, which I beg leave to call rigid Arminianism, and rigid Calvinism. 

Vou. Il. 22 


338 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


VI. The error of rigid Arminians, with respect to those three grand 
covenants, consists in not sufficiently distinguishing them, and in not 
maintaining, with sufficient plainness, that they are all covenants of 
redeeming grace; that Judaism is the old covenant of partial, redeem. 
ing grace ; ‘and that Christianity is the new covenant of partial, redeem. 
ing grace. . ‘ 

Vil. The error of rigid Calvinists consists in confounding the cove. 
nants of creating and redeeming grace, and in reducing them all to 
two: the one a covenant of non-redemption, which they call “the law ;” 
and the other a covenant of particular redemption, which they call “the 
Gospel.” 'To form the first of these unscriptural covenants, they jumble — 
the Creator’s law, given to innocent man in paradise, with the Re- 
deemer’s law, given to the Israelites on Mount Sinai. Nor do they see 
that these two laws, or covenants, are as different from each other, as a 
covenant made with sinless man, without a priest, a sacrifice, and a 
mediator, is different from a covenant made with sinful man, an 
“ordained in the hand of a Mediator,” with an interceding priest, and 
atoning sacrifices, Gal. iii, 19. Secondly, they suppose that all men— 
now born into the world are under this imaginary law, that is; under 
this unscriptural, confused mixture of the Adamic law of innocence, and 
of the Mosaic law of Sinai: an error this, which is so much the more 
glaring, as no man, except Christ, was ever placed under the covenant 
of innocence, since the Lord entered into a mediatorial covenant with 
fallen Adam: and no man has been put under the law, or covenant of 
Moses, from the time that covenant was “abolished, and done away in 
Christ,” 2 Cor. iii, 7, 14, which happened when Christ said, “It is 
finished,” and when “the veil of the temple,” a type of the Jewish dis- 
pensation, ‘ was rent from top to bottom.” 

So capital an error, as that of the rigid Calvinists about the law, could — 
not but be productive of a similar error about the Gospel. And there- 
fore when they had formed the merciless covenant which they call the 
law, by confounding the precept and curse of the law ef innocence, with 
the precept and curse of the law of Moses, abstracted from all media- 
torial promises ; when they had done this, I say, it was natural enough 
for them to mistake and confound the promises of the three grand 
covenants, which I have just mentioned; I mean the one general 
covenant of grace, made with Adam and Noah; and the two particular 
covenants of grace, the former of which was “ ordained in the hands of 
Moses, the servant of God ;” and the latter in the hands of * Christ, the 
only begotten Son of God.” Hence it is, that overlooking the promises 
of the general covenant of grace, and considering only the promises of 
Judaism and Christianity, which are two grand covenants of peculiar 
grace, the rigid Calvinists fancy that there is but* one covenant of 
grace: that this covenant is particular; that it was made with Christ 
only ; that it was a covenant of unchangeable favour on the part of th 


at 


* Zelotes will possibly laugh at the insinuation that there is more than or 
covenant of grace. If he does, I will ask him if a covenant of grace is not the 
same thing as a covenant of promise; and if St. Paul does not expressly mention 
““the covenants of promise,” Eph. ii, 12, and a ‘* better covenant,” which was | 
‘established upon better promises” than the first [particular] covenant of hee 
mise? Heb. viii, 6, 7. 


WTHIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 339 


Father, of eternal redemption on the part of the Son, and of irresistible 
sanctification on the part of the Holy Ghost; that some men, called the 
elect, are absolutely and eternally interested in this covenant; that other 
men, called the reprobates, are absolutely and everlastingly excluded 
from it; that finished salvation, through Christ, is the unavoidable lot 
of the fortunate elect, who are supposed to be under the absolute bless- 
ing of a lawless Gospel; and that finished damnation, through Adam, 
is the unavoidable portion of the unfortunate reprobates, who are sup- 
posed to be, from their mother’s womb, under the absolute, irreversible, 
everlasting curse of a merciless law, and of an absolutely Christless 
covenant. 

Vill. We may say to rigid Calvinists, and rigid Arminians, what 
God said once to the Jewish priests: “Ye have been partial in the 
law,” Mal. ii, 9. Nor is it possible to reduce their two partial systems 
to the genuine and full standard of the Gospel, otherwise than by con- 
sistently guarding the Calvinian doctrines of grace, by the Arminian 


“doctrines of justice ; and the Arminian doctrines of justice, by the 


Calvinian doctrines of grace: when these two partial gospels are joined 
in a Scriptural manner, they do not destroy, but balance and illustrate 
each other. ‘Take away from them human additions, or supply their 
deficiencies, and you will restore them to their original importance. 
They will again form the spiritual “weights of the sanctuary,” which 
are kept for public use in the sacred records, as I humbly hope I have 
made appear in the Scripture Scales. 

IX. To guard the Gospel against the errors of the rigid Calvinists, 
and the rigid Arminians, we need then only show that God, as Creator, 
Redeemer, and Sanctifier, has a right to be, and actually is partial in the 
distribution of grace ; but that as Lawgiver, Governor, and Judge, he is, 
and ever will be, impartial in the distribution of justice : or, which comes’ 
to the same thing, we need only restore the doctrine of God’s various 
laws, or covenants of grace, to their Scripture lustre. Rigid Calvinism 
will be lost in Bible Arminianism, and rigid Arminianism will be lost in 
Bible Calvinism, as soon as Protestants will pay a due regard to the 
following truths: (1.) God, for Christ’s sake, dissolved, with respect to 
us, the covenant of paradisiacal innocence, when he turned man out of 
a forfeited paradise into this cursed world, for having broken that 
coyenant. Then it was that man’s Creator first became his Redeemer ; 
then mankind were placed under the first mediatorial covenant of pro- 
mise. ‘Then our Maker gave to Adam, and to all the human species, 
which was in Adam’s Joins, a Saviour, who is called “the seed of the 
woman,—the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,’ who was 
to make the paradisiacal covenant honourable by his sinless obedience. 
(2.) Accordingly, ‘ Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every 
man ;” purchasing for all men the privileges of the general covenant of 
grace, which God made with Adam, and ratified to Noah, the second 
general parent of mankind. (38.) Christ, according to the peculiar pre- 
destination and election of God, peculiarly tasted death for the Jews, his 
first chosen nation and peculiar people ; purchasing for them all the 
privileges of the peculiar covenant of grace, which the Scriptures call 
the old covenant of peculiarity. (4.) That Christ, according to the 
most peculiar predestination and election of God, most peculiarly tasted 


\ 


340 EQUAL CHECK. | [part 


death for the Christians, his second chosen nation and most. peculiar 
people; procuring for them the invaluable privileges of his own most 
precious Gospel, “by which he has brought life and immortality to 
meridian light ;” and has richly supplied the defects of the Noahic and 
Mosaic dispensations ; ; the first of which is noted for its darkness; and 
the second for its veils and shadows. And lastly, that with respect 0 
these peculiar privileges, Christ is said to have peculiarly “ given him. 
self for the’ Christian Church, that he might cleanse it with the bap- 
tismal washing of water by the word,” Eph. v, 26; peculiarly “pur. 
chasing it by his own blood,” Acts xx, 28; and delivering it from 
heathenish darkness, and Jewish shadows, that it might be “ redeemed 
from all iniquity,” and that his Christian people might be a “ peculiar 
people to himself, zealous of good works,” even above the Jews who 
“fear God,” and the Gentiles who “ work righteousness,” Tit. 11, 14. 

X. As soon as we understand the nature of “the covenants of pro- 
mise,” and the doctrine of the dispensations of Divine grace, we have a 
key to open the mystery of God’s gratuitous election and reprobation, 
We can easily understand, that when a man is elected only to the general 
blessings of Gentilism, he is reprobated from the blessings peculiar to 
Judaism and Christianity ; and that when he is elected to the blessings 
of Christianity, he is elected to inherit the substance of all the covenanted 
blessings of God, because the highest dispensation takes in the inferior 
ones; as the authority of a colonel includes that of a lieutenant and a 
captain; or as meridian light takes in the dawn of day and the morning 
light. 
XL. Our election from Gentilism or Judaism to the blessings of Chris 
tianity, is an election of peculiar grace. It is to be hoped, that few 
Arminians are so unreasonable as to think that God might not haye 
deprived us of New Testament blessings, as he did Moses; and of Old 
Testament blessings, as he did Noah; leaving us under the general 
covenant of Gentilism, as he did that patriarch. " 

XII. When God gratuitously elected and called thé Jews to be his 
peculiar people, and chosen nation, he reprobated all the other nations, 
that is, all the Gentiles, from that honour; an unspeakable honour this, 
which the Jews thought God had appropriated to them for ever. But 
when Christ formed his Church, he elected to its privileges the Gentiles 
as well as the Jews; insomuch that, to enter into actual serie of 


preaching of the Gospel of Christ, nothing more is required of him, t an 
to “make his free calling and election sure,” by “the obedience of 
faith.” That God had a right to extend his election of peculiar 
to the believing Gentiles, and to reprobate the unbelieving Jews, is the 
poimt which St. Paul chiefly labours in Rom. ix. And that the privileges’ 
of this election, which God has extended to the Gentiles, are immensely 
great, is what the apostle informs us of in the three first chapters of h 
Epistle to the Ephesians. a 
XIII. Our election to Christianity, and its peculiar blessings, being 
entirely gratuitous, and preceding every work of Christian obedience; 
‘nothing can be more absurd and unevangelical, than to rest it upon 
works of any sort. Hence it is, that when St. Paul maintains the 
tial election of richest grace, he says, speaking of the Jews, “ There is” 


THIRD. ] RECONCILIATION. g 341 


[among them] a remnant according to the election of grace.” That is, 
«“ There is a considerable number of Jews, who, like myself, make their 
gratuitous calling and election to the blessings of Christianity sure 
through faith.” For wherever there were Jews and Gentiles, the Jews 
had the honour of the first call: so far was God from absolutely repro- 
bating them from his Christian “covenant of promise!” If you ask, 
why the apostle calls this election to the blessings of Christianity “the 
election of grace,” I answer, that it peculiarly deserves this name, 
because it is both peculiarly gracious, and amazingly gratuitous. And 
therefore, adds the apostle, “if thas election is by mere grace, then it is 
no more of works; otherwise grace is no more mere grace. But if it 
be of works, then it is no more of mere grace: otherwise work is no 
more work,” Rom. xi, 5, 6.*. 

XIV. If the rigid Arminians are culpable for being ashamed of God’s 
evangelical partiality, for overlooking his distinguishing love, and for 
casting a veil over his election of grace; the rigid Calvinists are not less 
blamable, for turning that holy election into an unscriptural and abso- 
lute election, which leaves no room for the propriety of making our 
“ election sure,” and is attended with an unscriptural and absolute repro- 
bation, as odious as free wrath, and as dreadful as insured damnation. 

This merciless and absolute reprobation is the fundamental error of 
the rigid Papists, as well as of the rigid Calvinists. Take away this 
popish principle, “ There is no salvation out of the Church: a damning 
reprobation rests upon all who die out of her pale;” and down comes 
persecuting popery. There is no pretext left to force popish errors upon 
men by fire, faggo‘s, or massacres; and the burning of heretics gives 
place to the charity which hopeth all things. Again: take away this 
principle of the rigid Calvinists, “'There is absolutely no redemption, no 
salvation, but for a remnant according to the new covenant, and the 
election of God’s partial grace; an absolute reprobation, and an un- 
avoidable damnation, rest upon all mankind beside ;” take away, I say, 
this principle of the rigid Calvinists, and down comes unscriptural Cal- 
yvinism, with all the contentions which it perpetually begets. 

XV. The rigid Papists, who set up themselves as defenders of the 
doctrines of justice, and yet hold popish reprobation, are full as incon- 
sistent as the rigid Calvinists, who come forward as defenders of the 
doctrines of grace, and yet hold Calvinian reprobation: for popish and 
Calvinian reprobation equally confound the Gospel dispensations, and 
leave Divine justice and grace neither root nor branch, with respect to 
all those who die unacquainted with Christianity, that is, with respect to 
far the greatest part of mankind. 

* My light and theological accuracy have, I hope, increased gince I wrote the 
sermon on these words. I did not then clearly see that the election of grace, of 
which the apostle speaks in this verse, is our gratuitous election to the blessings 
of Christianity as it is opposed to Judaism, and not merely as it is opposed to 


the Adamic covenant of works. I had not then sufficiently considered these 
words of St. John :—‘ The law [that is, the Jewish dispensation] came by Moses, 


but grace and truth [that is, a more gracious and brighter dispensation] ‘‘ came 


by Jesus Christ.” Hence it follows, that this expression, ‘‘ the election of grace,” 
when a sacred writer speaks of the Jewish and of the Christian dispensations, 
which St. Paul does throughout this part of his Epistle to the Romans, means 
a gratuitous election to Christianity, or to the peculiar blessings of the Gospel 
of Christ. 


342 EQUAL CHECK. _ [PART 


XVI. To conclude: Milton says somewhere, “There is a certain 
scale of duties, a certain hierarchy of upper and lower commands, which 
for want of studying in right order, all the world is in confusio 
What that great man said of the scale of duties and commands, may 
with equal propriety be affirmed of the scale of evangelical truths, and 
the hierarchy of upper and lower Gospel dispensations. For want of 
studying them in right order, all the Church is in confusion. The most 
effectual, not to say the only way of ending these theological disputes 
of Christians, and destroying the errors of levelling Pelagianism, Anti- 
nomian Calvinism, confused Arminianism, and reprobating popery, is to 
restore primitive harmony and fulness to the partial gospels of the day; 
which can be done with ease, among candid and judicious inquirers 
after truth, by placing the doctrine of the dispensations in its Seripture 
light ; and by holding forth the doctrines of grace and justice in all their 
evangelical brightness. This has been attempted in the two Essays from 
which these inferences are drawn. Whether the well-meant attempt 
shall be successful with respect to one, is a question, which thy reason 
and candour, gentle reader, are called upon to decide. 


SECTION VI. 


The plan of a general reconciliation and union between the moderate 
Calvinists and the candid Arminians. 


By the junction of the doctrines of grace and justice, which, I bonds 
is effected in the two Essays on Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism, 
the Gospel of Christ recovers its original fulness and giory, and the two 
Gospel axioms are equally secured: for, on the one hand, the absolute 
sovereignty and partial goodness of our Creat r and Redeemer shine as 
the meridian blaze of day, without casting the east shade upon his truth 
and equity: you have an election of free grace, without a reprobation 
of free wrath. And, on the other hand, the impartial justice of our 
Governor and Judge appears like an unspotted sun, whose brightness is 
perfectly consistent with the transcendent splendour of free grace and 
distinguishing love. The elect receive “the reward of the inheritance” 
with feelings of pleasing wonder and shouts of humble praise. Nor 
have the reprobates the least ground to say, that the Judge of all the 
earth does not do right, and that they are lost merely because irresistible 
power necessitated them to sin by Adam without remedy, that they 
might be damned by Christ without possibility of escape. ‘Thus the 
gracious and righteous ways of God with man are equally vindicated, 
and the whole controversy terminates in the following conclusion, which 
is the ground of the reconciliation, to which moderate Calvinists and — 
candid Arminians are invited. 

Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism are two essential opposite — 
parts of the Gospel, which agree as perfectly together as two wings of 
a palace, the opposite ramparts of a regular fortress, and the different — 
views of a fine face, considered by persons who stand, some on the 
right and some on the left hand of the beauty whe draws their attention, 


THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 343 


Rigid Calvinists* and rigid Arminians* are both in the wrong ; the former 
in obscuring the doctrines of impartial justice, and the latter in clouding 
the doctrines of partial grace : but moderate Calvinists* and candid Armi- 
nians* are very near each other, and very near the truth; the difference 
there is between them being more owing to confusion, want of proper 
explanation, and misapprehension of each other’s sentiments, than to any 
real, inimical opposition to the truth, or to one another. And therefore, 
they have no more reason to fall out with each other, than masons who 
build the opposite wings of the same building ; soldiers, who defend the 
opposite sides of the same fortification ; painters, who take different views 
of the same face ; or loyal subjects, who vindicate different, but equally 
just claims of their royal master. 

Since there is so immaterial a difference between the moderate Cal- 
vinists and the candid Arminians, why do they keep at such distance 
from each other? Why do they not publicly give one another the night 
hand of fellowship, and let all the world know that they are brethren, 
and will henceforih own, love, help, and defend each other as such? 


* Rigid Calvinists are persons who hold the Manichean doctrine of absolute 
necessity, and maintain both an unconditional election of free grace in Christ, and 
an unconditional reprobation of free wrath in Adain. Moderate Calvinists are 
men who renounce the doctrine of absolute necessity, stand up for the election 
of free grace, and are ashamed of the reprobation of free wrath. Rigid Arminians 
are persons who will not hear of an unconditional election, make more of free 
will than of free grace, oppose God’s gracious sovereignty, deny his partiality, and 
condemn Calvinism in an unscriptural manner. Candid Arminians are people 
who mildly contend for the doctrines of justice, and are willing to hear with 
candour what the judicious Calvinists have to say in defence of the doctrines of 

race. 

e In my Preparatory Essay, I have expressed myself as one, who sometimes doubts 
whether Arminius did see the doctrine of election in a clear light. It may be 
proper to account here for a degree of seeming inconsistency into which this 
transient doubt has betrayed me. Having been long ill, and at a distance from 
my books, I have not lately looked into Arminius’ Works; nor did I ever read 
them carefully through, as every one should have done, who positively condemns 
or clears him. And if I have somewhere positively said, that he was not clear 
in the doctrine of election, I did it, (1.) Because I judged of Arminius’ doctrine by 
that of the Arminians, who seem to me to be in general (as I had been for years) 
unacquainted with the distinction between the election of grace and that of jus- 
tice. (2.) Because, at the synod of Dort, the Arminians absolutely refused to 
debate first the point of election, which the Calvinists wanted them to do. Whence 
I concluded that Arminius had not placed that point of doctrine in a light strong 
enongh to expel the darkness which rigid Calvinists had spread over it. And, 
(3.) Because it is generally supposed that Arminius leaned to the error of Pelagius, 
who did not do justice to the election of grace. Mr. Rayle, for ez2mple, in his life 
of Arminius, says, ‘*‘ Arminius condemned the Supralapsarian Beza, and afterward 
acknowledged no other election than that which was grounded on the obedience 
of sinners to the call of God by Jesus Christ.” If this account of Mr. Bayle be 
just, it is evident that Arminius, as well as Pelagius, admitted only the election 
of justice. However, a candid clergyman, who has read Arminius, assures me 
that in some parts of his writings, he does justice to the unconditional election of 
grace. And indeed this election is so conspicuous in the Scriptures, that it is 
hard to conceive it should never have been discovered by so judicious a divine as 
Arminius is said to have been. The difficulty in this matter is not to meet and 
salute the truth now and then, but to hold her fast, and walk steadily with her, 
across all the mazes of error. The light of evangelists should not break forth now 
and then, as a flash of lightning does out of a dark cloud; but it should shine 
constantly, and with increasing lustre, as the light of the eclipsed sun. 


344 EQUAL CHECK. PARP 
That no essential difference keeps them asunder, I prove by the follow 


ing argument :— itt 

If candid Arminians will make no material objection to my Essay of 
Bible Calvinism ; and if judicious Calvinists will not condemn my Essay 
on Bible Arminianism as unscriptural, it is evident that the differendil 
between them is not capital, and that it arises rather from want of light — 
to sec the whole truth clearly, than from an obstinate enmity to any a 
terial part of the truth. 

Nor is this a sentiment peculiar to myself: I hold it in common vi 
some of the most public defenders of the doctrines of grace and justice. 
The Arminians will not think that Mr. J. Wesley is partial to the Cal- — 
vinists, and the professing world is no stranger to Mr. Rowland Hill’s 
zeal against the Arminians. Nothing can be more opposite than the ~ 
religious principles of these two gentlemen. Nevertheless, they both — 
agree to place the doctrines which distinguish pious Calvinists from pious 
Arminians, among the opinions which are not essential to genuine, vital, 
practical Christianity. Mr. Wesley, in his thirteenth Journal, page 115, 
says, in a letter to a friend, “ You have admirably well.expressed what I — 
mean by an opinion, contradistinguished from an essential doctrine. — 
Whatever is compatible with love to Christ, and a work of grace, i term 
an opinion, and certainly the holding particular election and final perse- 
verance is compatible with these.” What he adds in the next sage is 
perfectly agreeable to this candid concession: “ Mr. H— and Mr. N— 
hold this, and yet I believe these have real Christian experience. But 
if so, this is only an opinion: it is not subversive [here is clear proof to 
the contrary] of the very foundations of Christian experience. It is com- 
patible with love to Christ, anda genuine work of grace ; yea, many hold 
it, at whose feet I desire to be found in the day of the Lord Jesus. If 
then I oppose this with my whole strength, I am a mere bigot still.” As 
Mr. Wesley candidly grants here that persons may hold the Calvinian 
opinions which Mr. Hill patronizes, and yet be full of love to Christ, 
and have a genuine work of grace on their souls; so Mr. Hill, in his 
late publication, entitled, A Full Answer to the Rev. J. Wesley’s Remarks, 
page 42, candidly acknowledges that it is possible to hold Mr. Wes- 
ley’s Arminian principles, and yet to be serious, converted, and sound in 
Christian experience. His words are: “ As for the serious and con- 
verted part of Mr. Wesley’s congregation, as I by no means think it 
necessary for any to be what are commonly called Calvinists, in order 
that they may be Christians, I can most solemnly declare, however they — 
may judge of me, that I love and honour them not a little; as I am sat- 
isfied that many who are muddled in their judgments are sound in their 
experience.” These two quotations do honour to the moderation of the — 
popular preachers from whose writings they are extracted. May i 
the pious Arminians and Calvinists abide by their decisions! So shal 
they find that nothing parts them but unessential opinions; that they are — 
joined by their mutual belief of the essential doctrines of the Gospel; 
and therefore, that if they oppose each other with their whole strength, 
they are “ mere bigots sill.” 

To conclude this reconciling argument : if there be numbers of holy 
souls, who are utter strangers to the peculiarities of rigid Calvinism and 
rigid Arminianism ; if both the Calvinists and the Arminians can pro- 


THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 345 


duce a cloud of witnesses, that their opinions are consistent with the 
most genuine piety, and the most extensive usefulness; if there have 
been many excellent men on both sides of the question, who (their oppo- 
nents being judges) have lived in the work of faith, suffered with the 
patience of hope, and died im the triumph of love ; and if, at this very 
day, we can find, among the clergy and laity, Calvinists and Arminians, 
who adorn their Christian profession by a blameless conduct, and by 
constant labours for the conversion of sinners, or the edification of saints, 
and who, the Lord being their helper, are ready to seal the truth of 
Christianity with their blood ; if this, I say, has been, and is still the 
case, is it not indubitable that people may be good Christians, whether 
they embrace the opinions of Calvin, or those of Arminius ; and by con- 
sequence, that neither rigid Calvinism nor rigid Arminianism are any 
essential part of Christianity ? 

And shall we make so much of nonessentials, as, on their account, 
to damp, and perhaps extinguish the flame of love, which is the most 
important of all the essentials of Christianity? Alas! what is all faith 
good for: yea, all faith adorned with the “knowledge of all doctrines 
and mysteries,” if it be not attended by charity? It may indeed help 
us to “speak with the tongues of men and angels,” to preach like apos- 
tles, and talk like seraphs; but, after all, it will leave us mere cyphers, 
or at best a “sounding brass,” a pompous nothing in the sight of the 
God of love. And therefore, as we would not keep ourselves out of 
the kingdom of God, which consists in “love, peace, and joy;” and as 
we would not promote the interests of the kingdom of darkness, by 
carrying the fire of discord in our bosoms, and filling our vessels with 
the “ waters of strife,” which so many foolish virgins prefer to the “ oil 
of gladness,” let us promote peace with all our might. Let us remem- 
ear that, “in all Churches of the saints, God is the author of peace ; 
that his Gospel is the Gospel of peace ;” that “he hath called us to 
peace; and that the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them 
that make peace.” Let us “study to be quiet; following peace with 
all men ;” and “ pursuing especially those things which make for peace 
in the household of faith :” nor let us turn from the blessed pursuit, till 
we have attained the blessing offered to peace makers. 

“The kingdom” of love, peace, and joy, “suffereth violence :” it 
cannot be taken and kept, without great and constant endeavours. The 
violent alone are able to conquer it; for it is taken by the force of 
earnest prayer te God, for his blessing upon our overtures of peace ; 
and by the vehemence of importunate requests to our brethren, that 
they would grant us an interest in their forgiving love, and admit us, for 
Christ’s sake, to the honour of union, and pleasure of communion with 
them. It is an important part of “the good fight of faith working by 
love,” to attack the unloving prejudices of our brethren, with a meek- 
ness of wisdom which turneth away wrath; with a patience of hope 
which a thousand repulses cannot beat off; with a perseverance of 
love which taketh no denial; and with an ardour of love which floods 
of contempt cannot abate. May God hasten the time when all the 
soldiers of Christ shall so learn and practise this part of the Christian 
exercise, as to overcome the bigotry of thew brethren! Nor let us 
think that this is impossible: for if the love of Christ has conquered us, 


346 EQUAL CHECK. - [PaRT 


why should we despair of its conquering others? And if the unjust 
judge, who neither feared God, nor regarded man, was nevertheless: 
overcome by the importunity of a poor widow, why should we doubt o 
overcoming, by the same means, our fellow Christians who fear Ge 
rejoice in Christ, regard men, and love their brethren? Let us only 
convince them by every Christian method, that we are their brethren 
indeed, and we shall find most of them far more ready to return our 
love, than we have found them ready to return our provocations 
indifference. | 

Should it be asked, What are those Christian methods, by which we 
could persuade our Calvinian or Arminian brethren, that we are their 
brethren indeed? I answer, that all these methods centre in these few 
Scriptural directions :—“ Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil 
with good.” Love your opponents, though they should « despitefully 
use you.” “Bless them,” though they should “ curse you.” “ Pray for 
them,” though they should “persecute you.” Wait upon them, and 
salute them as brethren, though they should keep at as great a distance 
from you, as if you were their enemies: “for if ye show love to them 
who show love to you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publi- © 
cans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only,” who kindly 
salute you, “ what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans 
so?” But treat them as God treats us: so shall you “be the children 
of your Father, who is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise, and 
sendeth his rain upon us all. Be ye therefore perfect, even as he is 
perfect.” No bigot ever observed these Gospel directions. And it is 
only by observing them that we can break the bars of party spirit ; and — 
pass from the close confinement of bigotry, into the “ glorious liberty” 
of brotherly love. 

These scriptures were probably before the eyes of a laborious minis- 
ter of Christ, when he drew up, some years ago, a plan of union among — 
the clergymen of the Established Church, who agree in these essentials: 
“(1.) Original sin. (2.) Justification by faith. (3.) Holiness of heart 
and life; provided their life be answerable to their doctrines.” This 
plan is as follows :—*“ But what union would you desire among these? — 
Not a union of opinions. They’ might agree or disagree, touching — 
absolute decrees on the one hand, and perfection on the other. Not a 
union in expression. These may still speak of the imputed righteous- 
ness, and those of the merits of Christ. Not a union with regard to 
outward order. Some may still remain quite regular ; some quite irre- 
gular ; and some partly regular, and partly irregular.” Not a union of 
societies. Some who do not see the need of discipline, may still labour 
without forming any society at all: others may have a society, whose — 
members are united by the bands of a lax discipline. And others, who 
have learned by experience that professors can never be kept long 
together without the help of a strict discipline, may strengthen their 
union with those who are like minded, by agreeing to observe such — 
rules as appear to them most conducive to the purposes of Divine and — 
brotherly love. “But these things being as they are, as each is per- 
suaded in his own mind, is it not a most desirable thing that we should — 
first remove hinderances out of the-way? Not judge one another, not 
envy one another? Not be displeased with one another’s gifts or sue- 


THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 347 


cess, even though greater than our own? Never wait for one another’s 
halting ; much less wish for it, or rejoice therein? Never speak dis- 
respectfully, slightly, coldly, or unkindly of each other? Never repeat 
each other’s faults, mistakes, or infirmities; much less listen for and 
gather them up? Never say or do any thing to hinder each other’s 
usefulness, either directly or indirectly? Is it not a most desirable 
thing, that we should, secondly, love as brethren? Think well of, and 
honour one another? Wish all good, all grace, all gifts, all success, 
yea, greater than our own, to each other? Expect God will answer 
our wish, rejoice in every appearance thereof, and praise him for it? 
Readily believe good of each other, as readily as we once believed evil? 
Speak respectfully, honourably, kindly of each other? Defend each 
other’s character: speak all the good we can of each other: recom- 
mend one another, where we have influence: each help the other on in 
his work, and enlarge his influence by all the honest means we can?” 
1 do not see why such a plan might not be, in some degree, admitted 
by all the ministers of the Gospel, whether they belong to, or dissent 
from, the Establishment. I would extend my brotherly love to all 
Christians in general, but more particularly to all Protestants, and most 
particularly to all the Protestants of the Established Church, with whom 
I am joined by repeated subscriptions to the same articles of religion, 
by oaths of canonical obedience, by the same religious rites, by the 
use of the same liturgy, by the same prerogatives, and by the fullest 
share of civil and religious liberty. But God forbid that I should 
exclude from my brotherly affection, and occasional assistance, any true 
minister of Christ, because he casts the Gospel net among the Presby- 
terians, the Independents, the Quakers, or the Baptists! If they will 
not wish me good luck in the name of the Lord, I will do it to them. 
So far as they cordially aim at the conversion of sinners, I will offer 
them the right hand of fellowship, and communicate with them in spirit. 
They may excommunicate me, if their prejudices prompt them to it: 
they may build up a wall of partition between themselves and me; but 
“in the strength of my God,” whose love is as boundless as his immensity, 
and whose mercy is over all his works, “I will leap over the wall ;” 
being persuaded that it is only daubed with untempered mortar, and 
made of Babel materials. Should not Christian meekness, and ardent 
loye bear down party spirit, and the prejudices of education? The king 
tolerates and protects us all, the parliament makes laws to imsure,tole- 
ration and quietness, peace and mutual forbearance ; and shall we, who 
make a peculiar profession of the “faith which works by love,” and 
binds upon us the new commandment of laying down our lives for the 
brethren ; shall we, I say, be less charitable and more intolerant than 
our civil governors, who, perhaps, make no such profession? Let bigot- 
ed Jews and ignorant Samaritans dispute whether God is to be wor- 
shipped on Mount Moriah, or on Mount Gerizim; let rigid Churchmen 
say, that a parish church is the only place where Divine worship ought 
to be performed, while stiff dissenters suppose that their meeting houses 
are the only bethels in the land; but let us, who profess moderation and 
charity, remember the reconciling words of our Lord, “The hour 
cometh, and now is, when true worshippers shall worship God every 
where, in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such catholic amd 


348 EQUAL CHECK. [parr 


spiritual persons to worship him ;” and not such partial and formal de. ' 


votees as the Jews and Samaritans were in the days of our Lord. 
But to return to our plan of reconciliation: might not some additions 


be made to Mr. Wesley’s draught ; for it is from a letter published in 


his thirteenth Journal, that I have extracted the preceding sketch of. 
union. Might not good men and sincere ministers, who are bent upon 
inheriting the seventh beatitude, form themselves into a society of 
reconcilers, whatever be their denomination, and mode of worship? 


Interest brings daily to the royal exchange a multitude of merchants, — 


ready to deal with men of the most opposite customs, dresses, religions, 
and countries ; and shall not the love of peace, and the pursuit of love, 
have as great an effect upon the children of light, as the love of money, 
and the pursuit of wealth have upon the men of the world? There isa 
society for promoting religious knowledge among the poor ; some of its 
members are Churchmen, and others dissenters: some are Calvinists, 
and others Arminians ; and yet it flourishes, and the design of it is hap- 


pily answered. Might not such a society be formed for promoting © 


peace and love among professors? Is not charity preferable to know- 
ledge? And if it be well to associate, in order to distribute Bibles and 
Testaments, which are but the letter of the Gospel, would it not be better 
to associate, in order to diffuse peace and love, which are the spirit of 
the Gospel? There is another respectable society for promoting the 
Christian faith among the heathen; and why should there not be a 
society for promoting unanimity and toleration among Christians? 
Ought not the welfare of our fellow Christians to lie as near our hearts 
as that of the heathen? There are in London, and other places, asso- 
ciations for the preventing and extinguishing of fires. As soon as the 
mischief breaks out, and the alarm is given, the firemen run to their 
fire engines; and without considering whether the house on fire be 
inhabited by Churchmen or dissenters, by Arminians or Calvinists, they 
venture their lives to put out the flames; and why should there not be 


associations of peace makers, who, the moment the fire of discord breaks | 


out in any part of our Jerusalem, may be ready to put it out by all the 
methods which the Gospel suggests? Is not the fire of hell, which con- 
sumes souls, more to be guarded against than that fire which can only 
destroy the body ? 


Should it be asked what methods could be pursued to extinguish the 


fire of discord, and kindle that of love ; I reply, that we need only be as 
wise as the Shaideen of this world. Gomeies we then how they pro- 
ceed to gain their worldly ends ; and let us go, and do as much to gain 
our spiritual ends. +d 

Many gentlemen, some laymen and others clergymen, some Church. 
men and others dissenters, wanted lately to procure the repeal of our 
articles of religion. Notwithstanding the diversity of their employments, 
principles, and denominations, they united, wrote circular letters, drew 
up petitions, and used all their interest with men in power to bring about 
their design. Again: some warm men thought it proper to blow up the 
fire of discontent in the breasts of our American fellow subjects. How 
did they go’ about the dangerous work? With what ardour did they 
speak and write, preach and print, fast and pray, publish manifestoes and 
make them circulate, associate, and strengthen their associations, and at 


| 
: 


THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 349 


last venture their fortunes, reputations, and lives, in the execution of 
their warlike project! Go, ye men of peace, and do at least half as 
much to carry on your friendly design. Associate, pray, preach, and 
print for the furtherance of peace. When ye meet, consult about the 
means of removing what stands in the way of a fuller agreement in 
principle and affection, among all those who love Christ in sincerity ; 
and decide if the following queries contain any hint worthy of your 
attention :— 

Might not moderate Calvinists send with success circular letters to 
their rigid Calvinian brethren ; and moderate Arminians to their rigid 
Arminian brethren, to check rashness, and recommend meekness, and 
moderation, and love? Might not the Calvinist ministers, who patronize 
the doctrines of grace, display also the doctrines of justice, and open 
their pulpits to those Arminian ministers who do it with caution? And 
might not the Arminian ministers who patronize the doctrines of justice, 
make more of the doctrines of grace, preach as nearly as they can like 
the judicious Calvinists, admit them into their pulpits, and rejoice at 
every opportunity of showing them their esteem and confidence? 
Might not such moderate Calvinists and Arminians as live in the same 
towns, have from time to time a general sacrament, and invite one 
another to it, to cement brotherly love, by publicly confessing the same 
Christ, by jointly taking him for their common head, and by acknow- 
ledging one another as fellow members of his mystical body? Might 
not some of the ministers, on these occasions, preach to edification on 
such texts as these :—“ Christ asked him, What was it that ye disputed 
about among yourselves by the way! But they held their peace ;” for 
by the way they had disputed, “who should be the greatest :” and he 
said unto them, “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of 
all, and servant of all. Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call 
me Master and Lord: and ye say well; forsoIT am. If I then, your 
Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one 
another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as 
I have done unto you. Receive ye one another as Christ also received 
us. Yea, him that is weak in the faith receive you, but not to doubtful 
disputations. Let us not judge one another any more: but Judge this 
rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his 
brother’s way. Let us follow after those things which make for peace, 
and things wherewith one may edify another: holding the head, from 
which all the body having nourishment, and knit together, increaseth 
with the increase of God. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for 
brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon 
Aaron’s head, and like the dew upon Mount Sion: for there the Lord 
commanded the blessing, and life for evermore.” Could not the society 
have corresponding members in various parts of the kingdom, to know 
where the flame of discord begins to break out, that by means of those 
mighty engines, the tongue, the pen, or the press, they might, with all 
speed, direct streams of living water, floods of truth and kindness, to 
quench the kindling fire of wrath, oppose the waters of strife, and 
remove whatever stands in the way of the fire of love? And if this 
heavenly fire were once kindled, and began to spread, might it not, in a 
few years, reach all orders of professors in Great Britain, as the 


350 EQUAL CHECK. 


contrary fire has reached our brethren on the continent? If we doubt 
the possibility of it, do we not secretly suppose that Satan is stronger to 
promote discord and contention, than Christ is to promote concord and 
unity? And, in this case, where is our faith? And where the love 
which “thinketh no evil,” and “hopeth all things?” If one or tw 
warm men have kindled on the continent so great a fire, that neither our 
fleets nor our armies, neither the British nor the German forces em. 4 
ployed in that service, have yet been able to put it out; what will not 
twenty or thirty men, burning with the love of God and of their neigh. 
bour, be able to do in England? We may judge of it by what twelve 
fishermen did one thousand seven hundred years ago. Arise then, ye 
sons of peace, ye sons of God, into whose hands’these sheets may fall. 
Our Captain is ready to lead you to the conquest of the kingdom of love. 
Be not discouraged at the smallness of your number, nor at the multi- 
tude of the men of war, who are ready to oppose you. Jesus is on 
your side: he is our Gideon. With his mighty cross he has smitten 
the foundation of the altar of discord: pull it down. Break your nar- 
row pitchers of bigotry. Hold forth your burning lamps: let the light 
of your love shine forth without a covering. Ye loving Calvinists, fall 
upon the necks of your Arminian opponents : and ye loving Arminians, — 
be no more afraid to venture among your Calvinian antagonists. You 
will not find them cruel Midianites, but loving Christians : methinks that — 
your mingled lights have already chased away the shades of the night 
of partiality and ignorance. You see that you are brethren; you feel 
it: and, ashamed of your former distance, you now think you can never 
make enough of each other, and testify too much your repentance, for 
having offended the world by absurd contentions, and vexed each other 
by inimical controversies. The first love of the Christians revives: you 
are “all of one heart and of”—but I forgot myself: I antedate the 
time of love, which I so ardently wish to see. The Jericho of bigotry, 
which I desire to compass, is strong: the Babylon of confusion and 
division, I would fain demolish, is guarded by a numerous garrison, 
which thousands of good men think it their duty to reinforce. It may 
not be improper therefore to make one more attack upon these accursed 
cities, and to insure the success of it by proper directions. 


SECTION VII. / 
Some directions how to secure the blessings of peace and brotherly love. 


« Do allthings without disputings,” says St. Paul, “that ye may be blame- 
less and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke. Be at peace among 
yourselves ; and if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably 
with all men:” but especially with your brethren in Christ. “Nor quench 
tne Spirit,” by destroying its most excellent fruits, which are peace and 
love. And that we may not be guilty of this crime, the apostle exhorts us~ 
to “avoid contentions,” and assures us, that God will “render indignation to _ 
them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth.” It highly concerns — 
ns, therefore, to inquire how we shall escape the curse denounced against 


THIRD.) RECONCILIATION. 351 


the contentious, and live peaceably with our fellow professors. And if 
we ought to do “all that lieth in us,” in order to obtain and keep the 
blessing of peace; surely we ought to follow such directions as are 
agreeable to Scripture and reason. I humbly hope that the following - 
are of this number. 

Dirzerion I. Let us endeavour to do justice to every part of the 
Gospel; carefully avoiding the example of those injudicious and rash 
men, who make a wide gap in the north hedge of the garden of truth, 
mm order to mend one in the east or south hedge. Let every evangelical 
doctrine haye its proper place in our creed, that it may have its due 
effect on our conduct. Consideration, repentance, faith, hope, love, and 
obedience, have each a place on the scale of Gospel truth. Let us not 
breed quarrels by thrusting away any one of those graces, to make more 
room for another. While the philosopher exalts consideration alone; 
the Carthusian, repentance ; the Solifidian, faith; the mystic, love ; 
and the moralist, obedience; thou, man of God, embrace them all 
in their order, nor exalt one to the prejudice of the rest. Tear not 
Christ’s seamless garment, nor divide him against himself. He de- 
mands our reverential obedience as our King, as much as he re- 
quires our humble attention as ‘our Prophet, and our full confidence as 


our Priest. It is as unscriptural to magnify one of bis offices at the 


expense of the others, as it would be unconstitutional to honour George 
Til. as king of Ireland, and to insult him as king of England or Scotland. 
And it is as provoking to the God of truth and order to see the stewards 
of his Gospel mysteries make much of the dispensation of the Son, while 
they overlook the dispensation of the Father, and take little notice of 
the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, as it would be provoking to a parent 
to see the persons, whom he has entrusted with the care of his three 
children, make away with the youngest, and starve the eldest, in order to 
enrich and pamper his second son. Where moderation is wanting, 
peace cannot subsist: and where partiality prevails, contention will soon 


make its appearance. 


II. Let us always make a proper distinction between essential and 


‘circumstantial differences. The difference there is between the Chris- 


tians and the Mohammedans is essential: but the difference between us 
and those who receive the Scriptures, and believe in the Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost, is in general about non-essentials: and therefore such 
a difference ought not to hinder union; although in some cases it may. 
and should prev ent a close communion. Ifwe fancy that every div ersity 
of doctrine, discipline, or ceremony, is a sufficient reason to keep our 
brethren at arm’s length from us, we are not so much the followers of 
the condescending Jesus, as of the stiff and implacable professors, men- 
tioned in the Gospel, who made much ado about mint, anise, and cummin ; 
but shamefully neglected mercy, forbearance, and lov e. 

Ilf. Let us leave to the pope the wild conceit of infallibility ; and let 
us abandon to bigoted Mohammedans the absurd notion that truth is 
confined to our own party, that those who do not speak as we do are 
blind, and that orthodoxy and salvation are plants, which will scarcely 


grow any where but in our own garden. So long as we continue in this 


error, we are unfit for union Sls all those who “do not wear the badge 


b of our party. A Pharisaic pride taints our tempers, cools our love, and 


352 EQUAL CHECK. ‘|PaRT 


breeds a forbidding reserve, which says to our brethren, “Stand by; ! 
am more orthodox than you.” * 
IV. Let us be afraid of a sectarian spirit. We may indeed, and we 
ought to be more familiar with the professors with whom we are mo 
particularly connected ; just as soldiers of the same regiment are mo 
familiar with one another, than with those who belong to other regiments. 
But the moment this particular attachment grows to such a degree as” 
to make a party in the army of King Jesus, or of King George, it breaks 
the harmony which ought to subsist between all the parts, and hinders 
the general service which is expected from the whole body. In what a 
deplorable condition would be the king’s affairs, if each colonel in his” 
army refused to do duty with another colonel: and if, instead of mutu- 
ally supporting one another in a day of battie, each said to the rest, «I 
will have nothing to do with you and your corps: you may fight yonder 
by yourselves, if you please: I and my men will keep here by ourselves, 
doing what seems good in our own eyes. As we expect no assistance 
from you, so we promise you that you shall have none from us: And 
you may think yourselves well off, if we do not join the common enemy, 
and fire at you; for your regimentals are different from ours, and there. 
fore you are no part of our army.” ‘If so absurd a behaviour were 
excusable, it would be among the wild, cruel men, who compose an. 
army of Tartars or savages ; but it admits of no excuse from men who 
call themselves believers, which is another name for the “ followers of 
Him” who laid down his life for his enemies, and perpetually exhorts 
his soldiers to love one another as brethren,—yea, as he has loved us. 
Let us then peculiarly beware cf inordinate self love. It is too often 
the real source of our divisions; when love to truth is their pretended 
cause. If St. Paul could say of fallen believers in his time, “ They all 
seeix their own ;” how much more may this be said of degenerate be- 
lievers in our days? Who can tell all the mischief done by this ungene- 
rous and base temper? Who can declare all the mysteries of error and 
iniquity, which stand upon the despicable foundation of the little words, 
I, me, and mine? Could we see the secret inscriptions which the 
Searcher of hearts can read upon the first stones of our little Babels, 
how often would we wonder at such expressions as these :—My church, 
my chapel, my party, my congregation, my connections, my popularity, 
my hope of being esteemed by my partisans, my fear of being suspected 
by them, my jealousy of those who belong to the opposite party, my sys- 
tem, my favourite opinions, my influence, &c, &c! 'To all those egotisms 
Jet us constantly oppose those awful words of our Lord, “ Except a man 
deny himself, he cannot be my disciple.” ‘Till we cordially oppose ou 
inordinate attachment to our own interest, we “ sacrifice to our own net,’ 
in our public duties; and even when we “ ‘preach Christ,” it is to be 
feared that we do it more “ out of contention,” than out of a real conce 
for his interest. 
What Dr. Watts writes on this subject is striking :—* Have we neve: 
observed what a mighty prevalence the applause of a party, and th 
advance of self interest have over the hearts and tongues of men, and 
inflame them with malice against their neighbours? They assault every 
different opinion with rage and clamour: they rail at the persons of all 
other parties, to ingratiate themselves with their own. When they 


_. maxim was, to “please all men to their edification 


‘THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 353 


to death for bitter reproach] the ministers of the Gospel, they boast like 
Jehu, when he slew the priests of Baal, ‘Come and see my zeal for the 
Lord.’ And as he designed hereby to establish the kingdom in his own 
hands; so they to maintain the reputation they have acquired among 
their own sect. But, ah! how little do they think of the wounds that 
Jesus the Lord receives by every bitter reproach they cast on his 
followers !” ' 

V. Let us be afraid of needléss singularity. The love of it is very 
common, and leads some men to the wildest extremes. The same 
spirit which inclines one to wear a hat cocked in the height of the 
fashion, and influences another to wear one in full contrariety to the 
mode, may put one man upon minding only the first Gospel axiom, and 
the blood of Christ, while another man fancies that it becomes him to 
mind only the second Gospel axiom, and the law of Christ. Thus, out 
of singularity, the former insists upon faith alone, and the latter recom- 
mends nothing but morality and works. May’we detest a temper, 
which makes men delight in an unnecessary opposition to each other! 
And may we constantly follow the example of St. Paul, whose charitable 


1? So shall “ our 
a) 


'. moderation be known to all men:” nor shall we absurdly break the 
__.balance of the various truths which compose the Gospel system. 


VI. Let us never blame our brethren but with reluctance. And 
when love to truth, and the interest of religion, constrain us to show the 
absurd or dangerous consequences of their mistakes, let us rather 
underdo than overdo. Let us never hang unnecessary* or false conse- 
quences upon their principles: and when we prove that their doctrine 
necessarily draws absurd and mischievous consequences after it, let us 
do them the justice to believe that they do not see the necessary con- 
nection of such consequences with their principles. And let us can- 
didly hope that they detest those consequences. 

VII. Let us, as far as we can, have a friendly intercourse with some 
of the best men of the various denominations of Christians around us. 
And if we have time for much reading, let us peruse their best writings, 
to be edified by the devotion which breathes through their works. This 
will be an effectual mean of breaking the bars of prejudice, contempt, 
fear, and hard thinking, which want of acquaintance with them puts 
between them and us. Why are savages frighted at the sight of civil- 
ized men? Why do they run away from us as if we were wild beasts ? 
It is because they have no connection with us, are utter strangers to the 
good will we bear them, and fancy we design to do them mischief. 
Bigots are religious savages. By keeping to themselves, they contract 


* I humbly hope that I have followed this part of the direction in my Checks. 
To the best of my knowledge I have not fixed one consequence upon the princi- 
ples of my opponents, which does not fairly and necessarily flow from their doc- 
trine. And I have endeavoured to do justice to their piety, by declaring again 
and again my full persuasion that they abhor such consequences. But whether 
they have done so by my principles, may be seen in my Genuine Creed, where I 
show that the absurd and wicked consequences, which my opponents fix upon the 
doctrines that I maintain, have absolutely nothing to do with it. Ido not how- 
ever say this to justify myself in all things: for I do not doubt, but if I had health 
and strength to revise my Checks, I should find some things which might have 
been said in a more guarded, humble, serious, and loving manner. 


Vou. II. 23 


(354 EQUAL CHECK. 
~ . 4 
a shyness toward their fellow Christians: they fancy that their brethre 
are monsters; they ask, with Nathanael, “Can any good * con 
out of Nazareth?” By ‘and by they get into the seats of the Phari e 
and peremptorily say, that “out of Galilee there ariseth no prophet 
And it is well if they do not turn in a rage from the precious truth 
delivered by some of the most favoured servants of God; fondly su 
posing, with Naaman, that the Jordan of their brethren is at to be com 
pared with the rivers of their own favourite Damascus; and un ha 
ritably concluding, with the pope and Mohammed, that all waters are 
poisonous except those of their own cistern, The best advice whic 
can be given to these prejudiced people, is that which Philip gaye to 
Nathanael, who fancied that Jesus was not a prophet : “Come an 
see.” I would say to Calvinian bigots, “ Come and see” your Arminian 
brethren; and to Arminian bigots, “Come and see” pious Calvinia 3) 
and you will be ashamed to have so long forfeited the blessing annex 
to brotherly communion ; for “they that fear the Lord, speak often oné 
to another, and the ieee hearkens and hears it, and a ‘beak of remem 
brance is written before him for them. And they shall be mine, saith 
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.” 

VIII. Let our religion influence our hearts as well as our heads 
Let us mind the practice as well as the theory of Christianity. . 
bare knowledge of Christ’s doctrine “ puffeth up, but charity edifieth 

“He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love,” and would 
haye us to be loving and “merciful as he is.” He receives us not 
standing our manifold weaknesses and provocations; and he say 
his apostle, “Forgive one another, as God for Christ’s sake hath for. 
given you; that ye may with one mind, and with one mouth, gloni ff 
God.” How far from this religion are ‘ee who, instead of receiving 
one another, keep at the greatest distance from their brethren, and per. 
haps pronounce damnation against them! ‘The men who rashly con. 
demn their “ weak brother to perish,” cannot be close followers of ou 

“merciful High Priest,” who “died for him,” who “is touched with 
* feeling of our infirmities, and has compassion on them that are ignorar 
and out of the way. If any man say, I love God,—the love of Christ 

-constraineth me,—and yet hateth his brother,” or shuns a reconciliatic 

with his fellow servants, “he is a liar; for he who loveth not hi 
-brother, whom he hath seen, how can Ws love God whom he hath ne 
‘seen? This commandment have we from Christ, that he who lov 
.God, love his brother,” yea, his enemy also. And love is “ pure, peace 
able, gentle, easy to be entreated, and full of mercy. It suffereth | 

and is kind, it envieth not, is not puffed up, it does not behave ii 
unseemly, it seeketh not its own, it beareth all things, it endureth 
things, it believeth and hopeth all things,” and it attempteth many things, 
that Christians may “be made perfect in one,” and may “keep tk 
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Where this love is not, tl 
practice of Christianity is absent. We may have the brain of a Chri 
tian, but we want his tongue, his hands, and his heart. We may indee 
say many sweet things of Christ; but we spoil them all if we spe 
bitterly of his members; for he who toucheth them, toucheth the ap 

.of his eye ; and he who wounds them, wounds him in the tenderest 

Hence the severity of our Lord’s declarations: “‘ Whosoever offendeth 


“THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. 355_ 


one of these little ones, who believe in me, it were better for him that 
a mill stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in 
the depth of the sea. And whosoever shall uncharitably say to his 
brother, Thou fool! shall be in danger of hell fire,” as well as a mur- 
derer, Matt. xviii, 6; v, 22. So dreadful is the case of those who make 
shipwreck of the faith which works by charity, while they contend for 
real or fancied orthodoxy. 

We shal! readily set our seals to the justice and propriety of these 
terrible declarations, if we remember that when Christians offend against 
the law of kindness, they stab their religion in her very vitals, because 
Christianity is the religion of love. From first to last, it teaches us 
loye—free, distinguishing, matchless love. The Father so loved the 
world as to give his only begotten Son that we might not perish. He 
freely delivered him up to death for us all, and with him he gives us all 
things ; forgiveness, grace, and glory. The Son, who, when he was in 
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with him, influenced 
by obedient love to the Father and tender pity toward us, assumed our 
nature, became a prophet to teach the religion of love, a king to enforce 
the law of love, a priest and a victim dying for the breaches of the law 
of love. He lived to keep and enforce the law of love: he wept, prayed, 
and agonized, to show the force of sympathizing love: he died on the 
cross to seal with the last drop of his vital blood the plan of redeeming 
love. He sunk into the grave, and descended into hades, to show the 
depth oflove. He rose again to secure the triumph of love: he ascended 
into heaven to carry on the schemes of love: from thence he sent, and . 
still sends, upon obedient believers, the spirit of burning ; baptizing them 
with the Holy Ghost, and with the fire of love, which many waters 
cannot quench; and from thence he shall come again, to send the 
unloying and contentious to their own place, and to crown loving souls 
with honour, glory, and immortality. The office of the Holy Ghost 
answers to the part which the Father and the Son bear in our redemption. 
When we receive him according to the promise of the Father, we receive 
him as the Spirit of love: he sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts; 
he testifies to us the love of Christ ; and his fruit, in our hearts and liv es, 
is “love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, and meekness.” 
This loying spirit is so essential to Christianity, that if you ask St. Paul 
and St. John an account of their religion, the former answers, The end 
of Christianity is “‘ charity out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and 
faith unfeigned:” and therefore if any Christian loveth not the Lord 
Jesus in his person and in his mystical members, he is accursed. 
Maranatha, the Lord cometh to cut in sunder that wicked servant, and 
to appoint him his portion with hypocrites in outer darkness. As for 
St. John, he thus describes Christianity :—“ Beloved, let us love one 
another: for love is of God: every one that loveth is born of God. We 
love him because he first loved us. And every one that loveth God 
who begat believers, loveth them also that are begotten of him: and 
this commandment we have from him, that he who loveth God love his 
brother also.” St. James’ testimony to the religion of love will properly 
close that of St. Paul.and St. John. ‘‘ Hearken, my beloved brethren. 
If ye fulfil the royal law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye 
do well: but if ye have respect to persons,” much more if ye bite and 


P ne. EQUAL CHECK. ; [Parr 
deyour your brethren, “ye are convinced of the law as transgressors: 
for whosoever shall keep the whole law [of love] and yet offend in one 
point, he is guilty of all.” He shows himself a bad Christian—a fallen 
believer. Therefore, “Speak not evil one of another, brethren, not 
grudge one against another, lest ye be condemned: behold, the Judge ; 
standeth at the door.” And Christ the Judge confirms thus the testi 
mony of his apostles, in his awful account of the day of judgment :— — 
Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, “ Come, ye blessed, 
inherit ‘the kingdom prepared for you, for” ye were kind and loving to 
me. ‘The head of every man is Christ,” and therefore, “ inasmuch as 
ye have done it [that is, inasmuch as ye have been kind and loving] unto 
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me :” ye have — 


from me, ye cursed :” for ye were not kind and loving to me: and if 
they plead “ Not guilty” to the charge, he will “ answer them, saying, — 
Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of 
these, ye did it not unto me :” that is, inasmuch as ye ‘were not kind to 
one of these, ye were net kind and loving to me. And these unloving 
men “shall go away into everlasting punishment ; but the righteous, 
[that is, the loving and: merciful, | into life eternal.” How plain is this 
religion! and how deplorable is it that it should be almost lost in clouds 
of vain notions, wild opinions, unscriptural systems, empty professions, — 
and noisy contentions! Were professors to embrace this ee 
Christianity, what a revolution would take place in Christendom ! 
accuser of the brethren would fall as lightning from heaven, and genuine 
orthodoxy would combine with humble charity to make the earth a 
paradise again. 

IX. Lastly: if we will attain the full power of godliness, and be 
peaceable as the Prince of Peace, and merciful as our heavenly Father, — 
let us go on to the perfection and glory of Christianity ; let us enter the ~ 

_ full dispensation of the Spirit. ‘Till we live in the pentecostal glory ef — 
the Church: till we are baptized with the Holy Ghost: till the Spirit of 
burning and the fire of Divine love have melted us down, and we have 
been truly cast into the softest mould of the Gospel: till we can say 
with St. Paul, “ We have received the Spirit of love, of power, and of a 
sound mind ;” till then we shall be carnal rather than spiritual believers ; 
we shall divide into sects like the Jews, and at best we shall be like the 
disciples of John and of Christ before they had received the gift of the 
Holy Ghost. We shall have an envious spirit: we shall contend about 
superiority, and be ready to stop those who do good, because they do it — 
not in our way, or because they follow not with us. And supposing we — 
once tasted the first love of the Church, and had really the love of God 
and our neighbour “ shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given — 
unto us ;” yet if this “love be grown cold,” or if we “ have left it,” by 
grieving or quenching the Spirit, we are fallen from pentecostal Chris. 
tianity, and instead of continuing in disinterested fellowship, like the 
primitive Christians, we shall “ seek our own,” as the fallen Philippians ; 
or we shall divide into parties like those Corinthians to whom St. Paul 
wrote :—“ Some of you have not the knowledge of the God of love; I © 
speak this to your shame. I cannot speak to you as to spiritual, but as 


been kind and loving to me: and I will give you “the reward of the — 
inheritance. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart 
é 


—_— 


THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. . 357 


to carnal believers, even as to babes in Christ. For ye are yet carnal: 
for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye 
not carnal, and walk as the men of the world? Examine yourselves 
therefore whether ye be in the faith: prove your own selves.” Is Christ 
in you?’ Have ye the Spirit of power, or have ye obliged him to with- 
draw? And are ye shorn of your strength, as Samson was, when the 
Spirit of the Lord was departed from him? Alas! Who can say how 
many believers are in this deplorable case without suspecting it? The 
world knows that they are fallen, but they know it not themselves. 
They make sport for the Philistines by their idle contentions, and they 
dream that they are the champions of truth. O may they speedily 
“ awake to righteousness,” and see their need of “ righteousness, peace, 
and joy in the Holy Ghost!’? And may “ power from on high” rest 
again upon them! So shall they break the pillars of the temple of 
discord, rebuild the temple of peace, and be “ continually in it, praising 
and blessing God,” instead of accusing and provoking their brethren. 


—_—— 


SECTION VIII. 
Farther motives to a speedy reconciliation—An exhortation to it. 


I. “ Azove all things,” says St. Peter, “have fervent charity among 
yourselves.” “Little children,” says St. John, “love one another.” 
Sweet precepts! but how far are we, from regarding them, while we 
give to bitter zeal, or to indifference, the place allotted to the communion 
of saints, and to burning love! Had these apostolic injunctions a due 
effect upon us, how would the fervent charity which victorious faith kin- 
dies, set fire to the chaff of our idle contentions, and make us ashamed 
of haying so departed from the Gospel as to give the world to understand 
(if men may judge of our doctrine by our conduct,) that the Scriptures 
exhort us to fall out one with another, and to mind charity less than 
every thing; whereas it enjoins us to mind it “ above all things,” above * 
all honour, pleasure, and profit,—yea, above all knowledge, orthodoxy, 
and faith. 

Il. We are commanded to “glorify God with one heart and one 
mouth.” Our lips should be instruments of praise, ever tuned to cele- 
brate the Prince of Peace,—ever ready to invite all around us to the 
Gospel feast ; the feast of Divine and brotherly love. To neglect this» 


_ labour of love is bad: but how much worse is it to be as “sounding 


brass,” as a “ tinkling cymbal,” as an infernal kettle drum, used by the 
accuser of the brethren, to call professors from the good fight of faith, 
to the detestable fight of needless or abusive controversy, and perhaps 
to the bloody work of persecution? Who can describe the injury done 
to religion by the champions of bigotry? An ingenious writer being one 
day desired to draw in proper colours the figure of uncharitableness, the 
monster which has so narrowed, disgraced, and murdered Christianity ; 
“J will attempt it,” said he “if you will furnish me with a sheet of large 
paper, and that of the fairest kind, to represent the Christian Church in 
this world. First, I will pare it round, and reduce it to a very small 
compass: then with much ink will I stain the whiteness of it, and 


a“ 
- 


- 


$58 - ' - EQUAL CHECK. [Part 
=. 


deform it with many a blot. At the next sitting I will stab it through 
rudely with an iron pen: and when I put the last hand to complete the 
likeness, it shall be besmeared with blood.” And shall we lend our 
common enemy iron pens, or tongues sharpened like the murderer’s 
swords, that he may continue to wound the members of Christ, and 
deform the Christian Church? God forbid! Let as many of us as haye 
turned our pens and tongues into instruments of idle contention, apply 
them henceforth to the defence of peace and brotherly love. 

Ill. If we refuse to do it, we practically: renounce our baptism: for 
in that solemn ordinance we profess to take God for our common Father, 
Christ for our common Saviour, and the Spirit for our common Sanc- 
tifier. When we receive the Lord’s Supper in faith, we solemnly bind 
this baptismal engagement upon ourselves, and tie faster the knot of 
brotherly love, by which we are joined to “ all those who in every place 
call upon the name of Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” Now can any 
thing be more antichristian and diabolical, than for persons, who con- 


stantly communicate, to live in discord, and perhaps to insult one another 


in a manner contrary to the first rules of heathen civility? O ye, who 
surround our altars, and there “humbly beseech almighty» God con- 
tinually to inspire the universal Church with the spirit of unity and 
concord, that all who confess his holy name may live in unity and godly 
love ;” can any thing equal your sacrilegious guilt, if, after such a 
solemn prayer, you not only refuse to live “in unity and godly love,” 
with your pious Calvinian and Arminian brethren, but also breathe the 
spirit of discord, and live in variance and ungodly contentions with them, 
merely because they do not pronounce “ Shibboleth” with all the em- 
phasis which our party puts upon some favourite words and phrases? If 
we continue to offer so excellent a prayer, and to indulge so detestable 
a temper, are we not fit persons to fight’ under the banner of Judas? 
Do we not with a kiss betray the Son of man in his members? Do we 
not goto the Lord’s table to say, “ Hail, Master !” and to deliver him for 
less than thirty pieces of silver, for the poor satisfaction of pleasing the 
bigots of-a party, or for the mischievous pleasure of breaking the 
balance of the Gospel axioms, and rending the doctrines of grace from 
those of justice ? ; 

IV. “God is love.” Let us be like “our Father-who is in heaven.” 
Satan is uncharitableness and variance: detest we his likeness, and let 
not the faithful and true Witness be obliged to say to us one day, “ Ye 
are of your father the devil, whose works ye do,” when you keep up 
divisions. “The devil,” says Archbishop Leighton, “ being an apostate 
spirit, revolted and separated from God, doth naturally project and work 
division.” This was his first exploit, and is still his grand design and 
business in the world. He first divided our first parents from God, and 
the next we read of in their first child, was enmity against his. brother. 
The tempter wounded truth, in order to destroy love, and therefore he is 
justly called by our Saviour “a liar, and a murderer from the begin- 
ning.” He murdered our first parents by lying, and made them mur- 
derers by drawing them into his uncharitableness. God forbid that we 
should any longer do the work of the father of lies and murders! 
Heaven prevent our committing again two so great evils as those of 
wounding truth and preventing love! of wounding truth by attacking the 


THIRD.] RECONCILIATION 359 


. 


Scripture doctrines of free grace and free agency! and of preventing 
love, by hindering the union of two such large bodies of professors, as the 
Calvinists and the Arminians! Nor let any lover of peace say, “I will 
not hinder the reconciliation you speak of ;” for it is our bounden duty to 
farther it by a speedy, constant exertion of all our interest with God, and 
influence with men: otherwise we shall be found “unprofitable, slothful” 
servants, and shall be judged according to this declaration of our Lord, 
“ He that gathereth not with me scattereth.” For he who, in so noble 
a cause as that of truth and love, is “neither cold nor hot,” pulls 
down upon his own head the curse denounced against the lukewarm 
Laodiceans. 

-Y. The sin of the want of union with our pious Calvinian or Arminian 
brethren, is attended with peculiar aggravations. We are not only 
fellow creatures, but fellow subjects, fellow Christians, fellow Protestants, 
and fellow sufferers (in reputation at least) for maintaining the capital 
doctrines of salvation by faith in Christ, and of regeneration by the 
Spirit of God. How absurd is it for persons who thus share in the 
reproach, patience, and kingdom of Christ, to imbitter each other’s 
omforts, and add to the load of contempt, which the men of the world 
cast upon them! Let Pagans, Mohammedans, Jews, Papists, and Deists, 
do this work.. We may reasonably expect it from them. But for such 
Calvinists and Arminians as the world lumps together under the name 
of Methodists on account of their peculiar profession of godliness, for 
such “ companions in tribulation,” I say, to “‘ bite and devour” each other, 
is highly unreasonable, and peculiarly scandalous. A 

VI. The great apostle of modern infidels, Mr. Voltaire, has, it is 
supposed, caused myriads of men to be ashamed of their baptism, and 
to renounce the profession of Christianity. His profane witticisms 
have slain their thousands; but the too cogent argument, which he 
draws from our divisions, has destroyed its myriads. With what exulta- 
tion does he sing,— 


. 
Des Chretiens divises les infames querelles 
Ont, au nom du Seigneur, apporte plus de mauz, &c. 


«“ The shameful quarrels of divided Christians have done more mischief 
under religious pretences, made more bad blood, and shed more human 
blood, than all the political contentions which have laid waste France 
and Germany under pretence of maintaining the balance of Europe.” 
And shall we still make good his argument by our ridiculous quarrels ? 
Shall we help him to make the world believe that the Gospel is an apple 
of discord thrown among men, to make them dispute with an acrimony 
and an obstinacy which have few precedents among men of the most 
corrupt and detestable religions in the world? Shall we continue to 
point the dagger with which that keen author stabs Christianity? Shall” 
we furnish him,with new nails to crucify Christ afresh in the sight of 
all Europe: or shall we continue to clinch those with which he has 
already done the direful deed? How will he triumph if he hears that 
the men who distinguish themselves by their zeal for the Gospel in Eng- 
land, maintain an unabated contest about the doctrines of grace and 
justice—a contest as absurd as that in which the whigs and tories would 
be involved, if they perpetually debated whether the house of lords or 


* 


py 


‘ 


360 , : EQUAL CHECK. [Parr | 
tha of commons makes up the British parliament ; and whether England — 


or Scotland forms the island of Great Britain! And with what self ap- 


. plause will he apply to us what the apostle says of wicked heathens and 


apostate Christians: “Because when they knew God, they glorified hi 
not as God”—the sovereign, righteous God of love and justice—* they 
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 


Professing themselves wise, they became fools: being filled with envy, 


debates malignity, whisperers, backbiters, despiteful, without understand. 
2, without brotherly affection, implacable ; having a form of godly ortho. 
ot but denying the power of” peaceable charity ! 
VIL. Instead of continuing to give avowed infidels such room to laugh 
at us and our religion, would it not become us to stop, by a speedy recon- 


ciliation, the offence given by our absurd debates? Should we feel less _ 


concern for the honour of Christianity, than Sir Robert Walpole did for 
the honour of the crown? _ It is reported that when he stood at the helm 
of the British empire, he was abused in parliament by some members of 


the privy council. Soon after, meeting with them in the king’s cabinet, — 


he proceeded to the despatch of business with his usual freedom, and — 
with a remarkable degree of courtesy toward his enemies, And bein; 
asked how he could do so, he replied, “The king’s business require 
union. Why should my master’s affairs suffer loss by the private quar- 
rels of his servants?” May the time come, when the ministers of the 


King of peace shall have as much regard for his interest, as that alll 


showed for the interest of his royal master! Do not circumstance: 
Church and in state loudly call upon us to unite, in order to make head 


against the enemy of Christ and our souls? An enemy ternble as the 


banded powers of earth and hell, headed by the prince of the air, whose 
name is “ Abaddon, Apollyon, Destroyer ?” 


_ VIII. Ye are no strangers to the craft and rage of that powerful adver- — 
sary, O ye pious Calvinists and godly Arminians! For “ ye wrestle not 


with flesh and blood only, but with the principalities and powers” of the 
kingdem of darkness! Cease then, cease to spend in wrestling one 
against another, the precious talents of time, strength, and wisdom, with 
which the Lord has entrusted you, to resist your infernal antagonist. 
Let it not be said that Herod, a Jew, and Pilate, a heathen, became 


friends, and united to pursue “ the Lamb of God” to death; and that — 


you, fellow Protestants, you, British believers, will not agree to “resist 


the devil, who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may — 


devour.” 

You are astonished when you hear that some obstinate lawyers are so 
versed in chicanery as to protract for years law suits which might be 
ended in a few days. Your controversy has already lasted for ages; 
and the preceding pages show that it might be ended in a few hours: 
‘should you then still refuse reasonable terms of accommodation, think, 
O think of the astonishment of those who will see you protract the 
needless contention, and entail the curse of discord upon the next gene- 
ration. 

Our Lord bids us “ agree quieliy with our adversaries 5? ;” and will ye 
for ever dispute with your friends? Joseph said to his brethren, “See 
that ye fall not out by the way ;” and so far as we know, his direction 
was faithfully observed. Christ says to us, Wear my badge: “ By this 


‘ 


+ 


—— 


- 'THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. : 361 


shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one ae : 
And will ye still fall out in the way to heaven, and exchange the Chris- 
tian badge of charity, for the Satanic badge of contention ? 
Passionate Esau had vowed that he would never be reconciled to his 
brother. Nevertheless, he relented ; and as soon as Jacob was in sight, 
“he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed 
him: and they wept,” Gen. xxxui, 4. And shall it be said that Esau, 
the hairy man, the fierce hunter, the savage who had resolved to imbrue 
his hands in his own brother’s blood, the implacable wretch, whom so many 
people consider as an absolute reprobate—shall it be said that Esau was 
sooner softened than you? He was reconciled to his brother who had 
deprived him of Isaac’s blessing by a lie ; and they lived in peace ever 
after. And will ye never be reconciled one to another, and live peacea- 
bly with your Calvinian or Arminian brethren, who, far from having 
deprived you of any blessing, want you to share the blessing of holding 
with them the doctrines of grace, or those of justice? 
The Prince of life “died, that he might gather together in one the 
children of God, who are scattered abroad,” John xi, 52. And will ye 
defeat this important end of his death? He “ would gather you as a hen 


_ gathers her brood under her wings ;” and will ye pursue one another as 


hawks pursue their prey? Or keep at a distance from each other, as 
lambs do from serpents ? Cannot Christ’s blood, “by which you are 
brought nigh to God,” bring you nigh to cach other? Does it not “speak 
better things than the blood of Abel?” kinder things than your mutual 
complaints? Does it not whisper peace, mercy, gentleness, and joy? 
“In Christ Jesus neither” rigid Calvinism “ availeth any thing, nor” 
rigid Arminianism, “ but faith which worketh b by love :” draw near with 
faith to the Christian altar, which streams with that peace-speaking 
blood. Behold the bleeding Lamb of God, and become gentle, merciful, 


“and loving! See the antitype of the brazen serpent! He hangs on 


high and says, “ When I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me :” 
and in me they shall centre as the solar beams centre in the sun. And 
will ye reply, “ We will not be obedient to thy drawings: we will not 
be concentrated in thee with our Calvinian or Arminian brethren! Thy 
Father may sacrifice thee to ‘slay the enmity, and so make peace 
and thou mayest lay down thy life to make reconciliation ; but reconciled 
to each other we will not be; for the god of discord draws us asunder, 
and his infernal drawings we will obey.” If you shudder at the thought 
of speaking such words, why should you so behave, that whoever sees 
you, may see they are the language of your conduct,—a language which 
is far more emphatical than that of your lips? 

Say then no longer, “« Have us excused ;” but “come to the banquet- 
ing house,”—the temple of peace where “the Lord’s banner over you 
“will be love,” and his mercy “will comfort you on every side.” “If 
there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any ‘comfort of love, if 
any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies ; fulfil ye the 
joy” of all who wish Sion’s prosperity : “ be like minded, having the same 
love, being of one accord, of one mind, submitting yourselves one to 
another in the fear of God. He is my record how greatly I long after 
you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ, in whom there is neither Greek 
nor Jew, neither bond nor free,” neither Calvinist nor Arminian, “ but 


i. 


As, 


~ Christ is all in all. My heart is ; enlarged : for a recompense in the 


ia i a 
. : » 7% ; ae hal ‘ ; 
362 EQUAL CHECK. | [PART © 


same, be ye also enlarged,” and grant me my humble, perhaps my dying 
request: reject not my plea for peace. If it be not strong, it is earnest: 
for (considering my bodily weakness) I write it at the hazard of my life. 
Animamque in vulnere pono. y 

But why should I drop a hint about so insignificant a life, when | 
can move you to accept of terms of reconciliation by the life and death, 
by the resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ? I recall 
the frivolous hint; and by the unknown agonies of Him whom you love; 
“who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications, 
with strong crying and tears, unto him who was able to save him from 
death ;” by his second coming ; and by our gathering together unto him, 
L beseech. you, “ put on, as the [Protestant] elect of God, bowels of 
mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering ; for- 
bearing. one another, and forgiving one another; even as Christ loved 
and forgave you, so also do ye.” Instead of absurdly charging one 
another with heresy, embrace one another, and triumph together in 
Christ. ‘Come up out of the wilderness” of idle controversy, “ lean- 
ing upon each other as brethren, holy and beloved :” and with your joi 
forces attack your common enemies, Pharisaism, Antinomianism, and 
infidelity. Bless God, ye Arminians, for raising such men as the pious 
Calvinists, to make a firm stand against Pharisaic delusions, and to main- 
tain with you the doctrines of man’s fallen state, and of God’s partial 
grace, which the Pelagians attack with all their might. And ye C 
vinists, rejoice, that Heaven has raised you such allies as the go 
Arminians, to oppose Manichean delusions, and to contend for the doc 
trines of holiness and justice, which the Antinomians seem sworn 
destroy. 

Jerusalem is a city which is at unity in itself. As soon as ye will 
cordially unite, the Protestant Jerusalem will become a praise in the 
earth. The moment ye join creeds, hearts, and hands, our reproach is _ 
rolled away: the apostasy is ended: the apostolic, pentecostal Church 
returns from her long captivity in mystical Babylon. The two staves, 
beauty and bands, become one in the hand of the great Shepherd, who 
writes upon it ‘“ Bible Calvinists reconciled to Bible Arminians:” see 
Zech. xi, 7, and Ezek. xxxvii, 16, 17. Thus united, how happy are 
ye among yourselves! How formidable to your enemies! The men 
of the world are astonished, and say, ‘“‘ Who is she that looketh forth as 
the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army 
with banners?” Surely it is a Church formed upon the model of the 
primitive Church. These people are Christians indeed. See how they — 
“ provoke one another to love and to good works!” 

Such will be the fruit of your reconciliation, and such the glory of 
“the Shulamite,” the peaceful Church! But, before I am aware, “ my . 
longing soul makes me like the chariots of Aminadab,” to go and admire | 
that truly reformed Church, whose members “are all of one heart and 
of one soul.” O ye pious Calvinists, and godly Arminians, if you desire 
to see her glory, express your wish in Solomon’s prophetic words, 
“Return, return, O Shulamite: return, return, that we may look upon 
thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company 
of two armies :” Cant. vi, 10, 12, 13: the combined force of the good 


; 


; at 
we © ges “ 

THIRD.] RECONCILIATION. a: 363 

men who maintain the doctrines of grace and justice, and who, by their 


union, will become strong enough to demolish modern Babel, and to bat- 
ter down Pharisaism and Antinomianism, the two forts by which it is 


defended. For Pharisaism will never yield, but to the power of Bible 


Calvinism and the doctrines of grace. Nor can Antinomianism be con- 
-quered, without the help of Bible Arminianism and the doctrines of justice. 
And when Pharisaism and Antinomianism shall be destroyed, the Church 
will be “sanctified, cleansed, and ready to be presented to Christ,—a 
glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.” ‘Then 
shall we sing with truth, what we sing without propriety :— 


. ** Love, like death, has all destroy’d, 
Render’d all distinctions void: 
Names, and sects, and parties fall, 
Thou, O Christ, art all in all.” * 


In the meantime, let us rejoice in hope, and sing with the Christian 
poet :-— 
‘Giver of peace and unity, 
Send down thy mild, pacific Dove ; 


ia We all shall then in one agree, 
* And breathe the spirit of thy love. 


We all shall think and speak the same 
. Delightful lesson of thy grace ; 
One undivided Christ proclaim, 
And jointly glory in thy praise. 
w Regard thine own eternal prayer, 
And send a peaceful answer down: 
To us thy Father’s name_declare ; 
Unite and perfect us in one. 


So shall the world believe and know, 
That God has sent thee from above; 
When thou art seen in us below, 
And every soul displays thy love.” 


* When I hear contending Calvinists and Arminians agree to print and smg 
this verse, I am tempted to cry to them, ‘“‘ Be at peace among yourselves,” or 
sing at your love-feasts,— 


Love has not our pride destroy’d, 
Render’d our distinctions void ; 
Names, and sects, and parties rise, 
Peace retires, and mounts the skies 


cthenncivnnrs aul re om 
=e 


PT 1} * 
iihons ' j at 


A REPLY * 


TO THE 


‘PRINCIPAL ARGUMENTS 


BY WHICH a 


THE CALVINISTS AND THE FATALISTS 


SUPPORT THE DOCTRINE OF d . sd 
ABSOLUTE NECESSITY : "4 
w 
BEING ; ‘ j 
REMARKS ® ‘ 
ON 


THE REV. MR. TOPLADY’S “SCHEME OF CHRISTIAN AND PHILO. 
SOPHICAL NECESSITY.” 


bi 


“ Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,” Col. ii, 8. 


i 
| 


mK 
ere 
gl? > . ” 


a - 
By 
wits 
INTRODUCTION. “ 


Mr. Votrarre at the head of the Deists abroad; President Edwards 
and Mr. Toplady at the head of the Calvinists in America and Great 
| Britain; and Dr. Hartley, seconded by Dr. Priestley and Mr. Hume, 
at the head of many ingenious philosophers, have of late years joined 
their literary forces to bind man with what Mr. Toplady calls « ineluc- 
tabilis ordo rerum,” or “the extensive series of adamantine inks,” which 
form the chain of “absolute necessity.” An invisible chain this, by 
which, if their scheme be true, God and nature inevitably bind upon us 
all our thoughts and actions; so that no good man can absolutely think 
or do worse—no wicked man can at any time think or do better than he 


" does, each exactly filling up the measure of unavoidable virtue or vice which 

God, as the first cause, or the predestinating and necessitating author 

of all things, has allotted to him from ail eternity. 

Mr. Toplady triumphs in seeing the rapid progress which this doctrine 

es, by the help of the above-mentioned authors, who shine with 

distinguished lustre in the learned world. «Mr. Wesley,” says he, 
“laments that necessity is ‘the scheme which is now adopted by not a 
few of the most sensible men in the nation.’ I agree with him as to the 
fact: but I cannot deplore it as a calamity. The progress which that 
doctrine has of late years made, and is still making in the kingdom, I 
consider as a most happy and promising symptom,” &c. 

I flatter myself that I shall by and by show, upon theological prin- 
ciples, the mischievous absurdity of that spreading doctrine, in an 
Answer to Mr. Toplady’s Vindication of the Decrees. But as he has 
lately published a book entitled, “The scheme of Christian and Philo- 
sophical Necessity, asserted in opposition to Mr. J. Wesley’s Tract on 

that Subject ;” and as he has advanced in that book some arguments 

taken from philosophy and Scripture, I shall now take notice of them. 

To defend truth effectually, error must be entirely demolished. There. 

fore, without any farther apology, I present the lovers of truth with the 

following refutation of the grand error which supports the Calyinian and 
Voltarian gospels. ° 
: 


. 


A REPLY, &c. 


—_——_ 


-Asiow of the doctrine of absolute necessity, as it is maintained by Mr. 
_ _Toplady and his adherents. This doctrine (as well as Manicheism) 
j makes God the author of every sin. 


Conrrovertists frequently accuse their opponents of holding detest- 
able or absurd doctrines, which they never advanced, and which have 
no necessary connection with their principles. That I may not be 
guilty of so ungenerous a proceeding, I shall first present the reader 
with an account of necessity and her pedigree, in Mr. Toplady’s own 
words. 
Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity, (pages 13, 14:) « If 
As we distinguish accurately, this seems to have been the order in ick 
’ ‘the most judicious of the ancients considered the whole matter. First, 
| God ; then his will ; then fate, or the solemn ratification of his will, by 
_ passing and establishing it into an unchangeable decree ; then creation ; 
then necessity ; that is, such an indissoluble concatenation_of secondary 
causes and effects as has a native tendency to secure the certainty of all 
__ events, as one wave is impelled by another ;* then providence ; that is, 
the omnipresent, omnivigilant, all-directing ‘The might have added ail- 
impelling| superintendency of Divine wisdom and power, carrying the 
whole preconcerted scheme into actual execution, by the subservient 
mediation of second causes, which were created for that end.” 

This is the full view of the doctrine which the Calvinists and the better 
sort of fatalists defend. I would only ask a few questions upon it. 
(1.) If all our actions, and consequently all our sins, compose the 
seventh link of the chain of Calvinism ;—if the first link is God; the 
second his will; the third his decree; the fourth creation; the fifth 
necessity; the sixth providence ; and the seventh sin; is it not as easy 
to trace the pedigree of sin through providence, necessity, creation, 
God’s decree, and God’s will, up to God himself, as it is to trace back 

| the genealogy of the prince of Wales, from George III, by George I, 
up to George I? And upon this plan is it not clear that suv is as much 
the real offspring of God, as the prince of Wales is the real offspring of 
George the First ? (2.) If this is the case, does not Calvinism, or if 
you please, | fatalism or necessitarianism, absolutely make God the author 
of sin by means of his will, his decree, his creation, his necessitation, 

. his impelling providence? And (horrible to think!) does’ it not un- 
avoidably follow, that the monster sry is the offspring of God’s provi- 
dence, of God’s necessitation, of God’s creation, of God’s decree, of 
‘God’s will, of God himself? (3.) If this Manichean doctrine be true, 
when Christ came to destroy sin, did he not come to destroy the work 

f God, rather than the work of the devil? And when preachers 

! 


* Mr. T. puts this clause in Latin: Velut unda impellitur unda. 
_ Vor. II. 24 


370 REMARKS ON TOPLADY S 


attack sin, do they not attack God’s providence, God’s necessitation, 
God’s creation, God’s decree, God’s will, and God himself? (4.) To 
do God and his oracles justice, ought we not to give the following 
Scriptural genealogy of sn? A sinful act is the offspring of a sinful 
choice ; a sinful choice is the offspring of self perversion; and self per- 
version may or may not follow from free will put in a state of probation, 
or under a practical law. When you begin at sin, you can never 
ascend higher than free will; and when you begin at God, you car 
never descend lower than free will. Thus, (i.) God; (ii.) his will te 
make free-willing, accountable creatures ; (iii.) his puttmg his will in 
execution by the actual creation of such creatures; (iv.) legislation on 
God’s part; (v.) voluntary,,unnecessitated obedience on the part of 
those who make a good use of their free will; and (vi.) voluntary, un. 
necessitated disobedience on the part of those who make a bad use of 
it. Hence it is evident, that by substituting necessity for free will, and 
absolute decrees for righteous legislation, Mr. Toplady breaks the golden’ 
chain which our gracious Creator made, and helps Manes, Augustine, 
Calvin, Hobbes, Voltaire, Hume, Dr. Hartley, and Dr. Priestley, tc 
hammer out the iron-clay chain by which they hang sin upon Goé 
himself. (5.) If all our sins with all their circumstances and aggrave 
tions, are only a part of “the whole preconcerted scheme” which 
“ Divine wisdom and power’ absolutely and irresistibly “carry into 
actual execution by the subservient mediation of second causes, which 
were created for that end;” who can rationally blame sinners for 
answering the end for which they were absolutely created? Who cai 
refuse to exculpate and pity the reprobates, whom all-impelling omnipo- 
tence carries into sin, and into hell, as irresistibly as a floating cork is 
carried toward the shore by tossing billows which necessarily impel one 
another? And who will not be astonished at the erroneous notions 
which the consistent fatalists have of their God? A God this who 
necessitates, yea, impels men to sin by his will, his decree, his necessix 
tation, and his providence: then gravely weeps and bleeds over them 
for sinning. And after having necessitated and impelled the non-eléet 
to disbelieve and despise his blood, will set up a judgment seat to damr 
hem for “necessarily carrying his preconcerted scheme into ae 
execution,” as “ second causes which were created for that‘end!” __ 
“Q! but they do it voluntarily as well as necessarily, and therefore 
‘they are accountable and judicable.” This Calvinian salvo makes a 
bad matter worse. For if all their sins are necessarily brought about 
‘by God’s all-impelling decree, their willing and bad choice are brought 
‘about by the same preconcerted, irresistible means ; one of the ends of 
God’s necessitation, with respect to the reprobate, being to make them 
sin with abundantly greater freedom and choice than if they were not 
necessitated and impelled by God’s predestinating, efficacious, ire 
sistible decree. This Mr. Toplady indirectly asserts in the following” 
argument :— 1 ie 
Page 15. “They [man’s actions—man’s sins] may be, at one and the 
same time, free and necessary too. When Mr. Wesley is very hungry 
and tired, he is necessarily, and yet freely, disposed to food or rest. His 
will is concerned in sitting down to dinner, or in courting repose, wh 
necessity impels to either. Necessarily biassed as he is to those 


7 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 37. 


mediums of recruit, he has recourse to them as freely (that is, as volun- 
tarily, and with as much appetite, choice, desire, and relish) as if necessity 
were quite out of the case; nay, and with abundantly greater freedom 
and choice than if he was not so necessitated and impelled.” 

Is not this as much as to say, “As necessitation, the daughter of 
God’s decree, impels Mr. Wesley to eat, by giving him an appetite to 
food: so it formerly impelled Adam, and now it impels all the reprobates 
to sin, by giving them an appetite to wickedness. And _ necessarily 
biassed as they are to adultery, robbery, and other crimes, they commit 
them as freely, i. e. with as much appetite and choice, as if necessity 
were quite out of the case: nay, and with abundantly greater freedom 
and choice than if they were not so necessitated and impelled.” Is not 
this reviving one of the most impious tenets of the Manichees? Is it not 
confounding the Lamb of God with the old dragon, and coupling the 
celestial Dove with the infernal serpent ? 

If you ask, “ Where is the flaw of Mr. Toplady’s argumentative ilius- 
tration?” I answer, It has two capital defects: (1.) That God’s will, his 
decree, and his providence, impel Mr. Wesley to eat when he is hungry, 
is very true ; because eating in such a case is, in general, Mr. Wesley’s 
duty; and reminding him of his want of nourishment, by the sensation 
which we call hunger, is a peculiar favour, worthy of the Parent of 
good te bestow. But the question is, Whether God’s will, decree, and 
providence, impelled Adam to choose the forbidden fruit rather than any 
other, and excited David to go to Uriah’s wife, rather than to his own 
wives? How illogical, how detestable is this conclusion! God necessi- 
tates and impels us to do our duty; and therefore he necessitates and 
impels us to do wickedness! But, (2.) The greatest absurdity belonging 
to Mr. Toplady’s illustration is, his pretending to overthrow the doctrine 
of free will by urging the hunger, which God gives to Mr. Wesley, in 


_ order to necessitate and impel him»to eat, according to the decree of 


Calvinian neceéssitation, which is absolutely irresistible. Mr. T. says, 
(page 13,) “‘ We call that necessary which cannot be otherwise than it 
is.” Now Mr. Wesley’s eating when he is hungry is by no means 
Caivinistically necessary: for he has a hundred times reversed the 
decree of his hunger by fasting ; and if he were put to the sad alterna- 
tive of the woman who was to starve or to kill and eat her own child, he 
both could and would go full against the necessitation of his hunger, and 
neyer eat more. Mr. Toplady’s illustration, therefore, far from proving 
that God’s necessitation irresistibly impels us to commit sin, indirectly 
demonstrates that God’s necessitation does not so much as absolutely 


* impel us to do those things which the very laws of our constitution and 


nature themselves bind upon us, by the strong necessity of self preserva- 
tion. For some people have so far resisted the urgent calls of nature 
and appetite, as not only to make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom 
of heaven’s sake, but even literally to starve themselves to death. 

I once saw a man who played the most amazing tricks with a pack 
of cards. His skill consisted in so artfully shuffling them, and imper- 
ceptibly substituting one for another, that when you thought you had 
fairly secured the king of hearts, you found yourself possessed only of 
the knave of clubs. The defenders of the doctrine of necessity are not 
less skilful. I shall show, in another tract, with what subtilty Mr. T 


372 REMARKS ON TOPLADY S 


uses “ permission” for efficacy,—no “ salvation due,” for eternal torments 
insured ; “not enriching,” for absolute reprobation ; and “ passing by,” 
for absolutely appointing to remediless sin and everlasting burnings. 
us now consider the grand, logical substitution which deceives 
gentleman, and by which he misleads the admirers of his scheme. 
Page 14. “TI acquiesce in the old distinction of necessity [a distinction 
adopted by Luther and others] into a necessity of compulsion, and a 
necessity of infallible certainty. We say of the earth, for instance, 
that it circuits the sun by compulsory necessity. The necessity of infalli- 
ble certainty is of a very different kind, and only renders the event 
inevitably future, without any compulsory force on the will of the agent.’ 
If Mr. T. had said, “ The necessity of trwe prophecy considers an event 
as certainly future, but puts no Calvinian, irresistible bias on the will ¢ 
the agent ;” I would have subscribed to his distinction. But instead of 
the words truly certain, or certainly future, which would have perfectly 
explained what may improperly be called necessity of true prophecy, and 
what should be called certain futurity ; instead of those words, I sa 
he artfully substitutes, first, “infallibly certain,” and then “inevitably 
future.” The phrase infallibly certain may be admitted to pass, if you 
understand by it that which does not fail to happen: but if you take it 
in a rigid sense, and mean by it that which cannot absolutely fail to 
happen, you get a step out of the way, and you may easily go on shuf 
fling your logical cards, till you have imposed fatalism upon the simple, 
by making them believe that certainly future, infallibly future, and 
inevitably future, are three phrases of the same import; whereas the 
' difference between the first and last phrase is as great as the difference 
between Mr. Wesley’s Scriptural doctrine of free will, and Mr. T.’s 
Manichean doctrine of absolute necessity. 
It is the property of error to be inconsistent. Accordingly we find 
that Mr. T., after having told us, p/14, that the “necessity of infallible 
certainty,” which renders the event inevitably future, lays “no compul- 
sory force on the will of the agent,” tells us, in the very same page, that 
his Calvinian necessity is “such an indissoluble concatenation of second. 
ary causes, [created for that end, ] and of eflects, as has a native tendency 
to secure the certainty of events, [i. e. of all volitions, murders, adultes 
ries, and incests,] sicut unda impellitur ‘unda ;” as one wave impels 
another; or as the first link of a chain, which you pull, draws the 
second, the second the third, and so on. Now if all our volitions are 
pushed forward by God through the means of his absolute will, his 
irresistible decree, his efficacious creation, and his all-conquering ne- 
cessitasion, which is nothing but an adamantine chain of second causes 
created by Providence in order to produce absolutely all the effects 
which are produced, and to make them impel each other, “as one wave 
impels another ;” we desire to know how our volitions can be thus irre. 
sisiibly impelled upon us “ without any compulsory farce on our will.” 
I do not see how Mr. T. can get over this contradiction, otherwise than 
by saying, that although God’s necessitation is irresistibly impulsory, 
yet it is not at all compulsory; although it absolutely impels us to will, 
yet it does not in the least compel us to be willing. But would so 
frivolous, so absurd a distinction as this, wipe off the foul blot which the 
scheme of necessity fixes on the Father of lights, when i; represent? 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 373 


him as the first cause, and the grand contriver of all our sinful 
volitions ? 

Mr. T., pp. 133, 134, among other pieces of Manicheism, gives us 
the following account of that strange religion :—‘“ There are two inde- 
pendent gods, or infinite principles, viz. light and darkness. The first 


js the author of all good; and the second of all evil. The evil god 


made sin. ‘The good god and the bad god wage implacable war against 
each other; and perpetually clog and disconcert one another’s schemes 
and operations. Hence men are impelled, Sc, to good, or to evil, ac- 
cording as they come under the power of the good deity, or the bad 
one.” Or, to speak Calvinistically, they are necessarily made willing 
to believe and obey, if they are the elected objects of everlasting love, 
which is the good principle ; and they are irresistibly made willing to 
disbelieve and disobey, if they are the reprobated objects of everlasting 
wrath, which is the evi principle. For free will has no more place in 
Manicheism than it has in Calvinism. Hence it appears that, setting 
aside the other peculiarities of each scheme, the grand difference be- 
tween Calvin and Manes on in Calvin’s making everlasting, elect- 
ing, necessitating love, and everlasting, reprobating, necessitating wrath, 
to flow from the same Divine principle ; whereas Manes more reasona- 
bly supposed that they flow from two contrary principles. Whoever 
therefore denies free will, and contends for necessity, embraces, before 
he is aware, the capital error of the Manichees; and it is well if he do 
not hold it in a less reasonable manner than Manes himself did. “J 
believe,” adds Mr. Toplady, “it is absolutely impossible to trace quite 
up to its source the antiquity of that hypothesis which absurdly affirms - 
the existence of two eternal, contrary, independent principles. What 
led so many wise people, and for so great a series of ages, into such a 
wretched mistake, were chiefly, I suppose, these two considerations: 
(1.) That evil, both moral and physical, are positive things, and so must 
have a positive cause. (2.) That a being, perfectly good, could not, 
from the very nature of his existence, be the cause of such bad things.” 

Here Mr. Toplady reasons like a judicious divine. The misfortune 
for his scheme is, that his “two considerations,” like two mill stones, 
grind Calvinism to dust; or, like two cogent arguments, force us to 
embrace the doctrine of free will, or the error of Manes. Mr. Toplady 
seems aware of this; and therefore to show that God can, upon the 
Calvinian plan, absolutely predestinate, and effectually bring about sin, 
by making men willing to sin in the day of his irresistible power; and 
that nevertheless he is not the author and first cause of sin; to show 
this, I say, Mr. Toplady asserts, “that evil, whether physical or moral, 
does not, upon narrow inspection, appear to have so much of positivity in 
it, as it is probable those ancients supposed.” Nay, he insinuates that 
as “sickness is a privation of health; so the sinfulness of any human 
action is said to be a privation ;” being called avowsa, “ illegality ;” and 
he adds, that wonderful as the thing may appear, Dr. Watts, in his 


_ Logic, “ventures to treat of sin under the title of not being.”* When 


* If the Calvinists, in their unguarded moments, represent sin as a kind of not 
being or nonentity, that they may exculpate God for absolutely ordaining it, do 
they not by this means exculpate the sinner also? If the first cause of sin is 
excusable, because sin is a privation, and has ‘‘not so much of positivity in it as 


* 
374 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S q 


Mr. Toplady has thus cleared the way, and modestly intimated that 
sin, being a kind of nonentity, can have no positive cause, he proposes” 
the grand question, “‘ whether the great first cause, who is infinitely and 
merely good, can be either efficiently or deficiently the author of them?” — 
that is (according to the context) the author of iniquity, injustice, im. 
piety, and vice, as well as the author of the natural evil by which 
God punishes sin? r 

Page 139, Mr. Toplady answers this question thus :—“ In my opinion, 
the single word permission solves the whole difficulty, as far as it can be 
solved,” &c. And page 141, he says, “ We know scarce any of the 
views which induced uncreated goodness to ordain (for, &c, I see no 
great difference between permitting and ordaining) the introgression, or 
more properly the intromission, of evil.” Here Mr. Toplady goes as 
far as he decently can. Rather than grant that we are endued with 
free will, and that when God had made angels and men free-willing 
creatures, in order to judge them according to their own works, he 
could not, without inconsistency, rob them of free will by necessitating 
them to be either good or wicked; rather, I say, than admit this Scrip- 
tural doctrine, which perfectly clears “the gracious. Judge of all*the 
earth, Mr. Toplady first indirectly and decently extenuates sin, and 
brings it down to almost nothing, and then he tells us that God ordained 
it. Is not the openness of Manes preferable to this Calvinistic winding ? 
When Mr. Toplady grants that God “ordained” sin, and when he 
charges “the intromission of evil” upon God, does he not grant all that 
Manes in this respect contended for? And have not the Manichean 
necessitarians the advantage’ over Mr. Toplady, when they assert that a 
principle, which absolutely ordains, yea, necessitates sin and all the 
works of darkness, is a dark and evil principle? Can we doubt of it, 
if we believe these sayings of Christ? “Out of the [evil] heart proceed 
evil thoughts, &c. By their works you shall know them. ‘The tree is 
known by its fruit.” . 

Again: if “sin,” or rather the sinfulness of an action, may be pro- 
perly called a “not being,” or a nonentity, as Mr. 'Toplady incen- 
sistently insinuates, page 137, it absurdly follows, that crookedness, or 
the want of straightness in a line, is a mere privation also, or a not 
being: whereas reason and feeling tell us that the crookedness of a 
crooked line is something every way as positive as the straightness of a 
straight line. To deny it is as ridiculous as to assert that a circle is a 
not being, because it is not made of straight lines like a square ; or that — 
a murder is a species of nonentity, because it is not the legal execution — 
of a condemned malefactor. Nor can Mr. Toplady mend his error by 
hiding it behind “Dr. Watts’ Logic ;” for the world knows that Dr. — 
Watts was a Calvinist when he wrote that book; and therefore, judi- ; 
cious as he was, the veil of error prevented him from seeing then that 
part of the truth which I contend for. : 

Once more: whether sin has a positive cause or not, (for Mr. Top- — 
lady insinuates both these doctrines with the inconsistency peculiar to _ F 
his system,) I beg leave te involve him in a dilemma, which will meet 
him at the front or back door of his inconsistency. Hither sin 7s a real 


the ancients supposed,” is not the second cause of sin much more excusable on : 
the same account? : 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 375 


thing, and has a positive cause; or it zs not a real thing, and has no 
positive cause. If it 1s Nor a real thing, and has no positive cause, why 
does God positively send the wicked to hell for a privation which they 
have not positively caused? And if sin 1s a real thing, or a positive 
moral crookedness of the will of a sinner, and as such has a positive 
cause; can that positive cause be any other than the self perversion of 
free will, or the impelling decree of a sin-ordaining God? If the posi- 
tive cause of sin is the self perversion of free will, is it not evident, that 
so sure as there is sin in the world, the doctrine of free will is true? 
But if the positive cause of sin is the zmpel/ing decree of a sin-ordaining, 
sin-necessitating God; is it not incontestable that the capital doctrine 
of the Manichees, the doctrine of absolute necessity is true; and that 
there is in the Godhead an evil principle, (it signifies little whether you 
call it matter, darkness, everlasting free wrath, or devil,) which positively 
ordains and irresistibly causes sin? In a word, is it not clear that the 
second Gospel axiom is overthrown by the doctrine of necessity; and 
that the damnation of sinners is of God, and not of themselves? 
hile Mr. Toplady tries to, extricate himself from this dilemma, I 

shall produce one or two more’passages of this book to prove that his 
scheme makes God the author of sin, according to the most dangerous 
error of Manes. The heathens imagined that Minerva, the goddess of 
wisdom, was Jupiter’s offspring in the most peculiar manner. Diana 
was indeed Jupiter’s daughter, but Latona, an earthly princess, was her 
mother: whereas Jupiter was at once the father and mother of Minerva. 
He begat her himself in the womb of his own bram, and when she was 
ripe fer the birth, his forehead opened after a violent headache, which 
answered:to the pangs of child bearing, and out came the lovely female 
deity. Mr. Toplady, alluding to this heathen fiction, represents his 
Diana, necessity, as proceeding from God with her immense chain of 
eyents, which has among its adamantine links all the follies, heresies, 
murders, robberies, adulteries, incests, and rebellions, of which men and 
deyils have been, are, or ever shall be guilty. His own words, page 50, 
are, “ Necessity, in general, with all its extensive series of adamantine 
links in particular, is, in reality, what the poets feigned of Minerva, the 
issue of Divine wisdom: [he should have said the issue of the supreme 
God, by his own wise brain,] deriving its whole existence from the free 
wil of God; and its whole effectuosity from his neyer-ceasing provi- 
dence.” Is not this insinuating, as plainly as decency will allow, that 
every sin, as a link of the adamantine chain of events, has been ham- 
mered in heaven, and that every crime “ derives its whole existence from 
the free will of God?” Take one more instance of the same Manichean 
doctrine := 

Page 64. Mr. Toplady having said that “he [God] casteth forth 
his ice like morsels, and causeth his wind to blow,” &c, adds, “ Neither 
is material nature alone bound fast in fate. Al] other things, the human 
will itself not excepted, are not less tightly bound, i. e. effectually in- 
fluenced and determined.” Hence it is evident, that if this Calvinism 
is true, when sinners send forth volleys of unclean and profane words, 
Calvin’s God has as “tightly bound” them to cast forth Manichean ~ 
ribaldry, as the God of nature binds the clouds to “cast forth his ice 
like morsels,” 


376 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


I would not be understood to demonstrate by the preceding quota. 
tions, that Mr. Toplady designs to make God the author of sin. No: 
on the contrary, I do him the justice to say, that he does all he can to 
clear his doctrines of grace from this dreadful imputation. I only pro- 
duce his own words to show that, notwithstanding ail his endeavours, 
this horrid Manichean consequence unavoidably flows from his Scheme | 
of Necessity. 


—— 


SECTION II. 


Mr. Toplady attempts to support his Scheme of Absolute Necessity by — 
philcsophy—His philosophical error is overthrown by fourteen argu- — 
ments— What truth comes nearest to his error. 


We have taken a view of the Scheme of Necessity, and seen how it 
represents God, directly or indirectly, as the first cause of all sin and 
damnation. Consider we now how Mr. T. defends this scheme by © 

#rational arguments as a philosopher. e 

Page 22. “The soul is, in a very extensive degree, passive as matter 
is.” Here Mr. Toplady, in some degree, gives up the poimt. He is” 
about to prove that the soul is not self determined ; and that, as our — 
bodily organs are necessarily and_ irresistibly affected by the objects 
which strike them; so our souls are necessarily and irresistibly deter- 
mined by our bodily organs, and by the ideas which those organs ne- 
cessarily raise in our minds, when they are so affected. Now, to prove 
this, he should have proved that our souls are altogether as passive as 
our bodies. But, far from proving it, he dares not assert it : for he 
allows that the soul is passive as matter, only “in a very extensive de- 
gree ;” and therefore, by his own concession, the argument on which 
he is going to rest the notion of the absolute passiveness of the soul 
with respect to self determination, will be at least in some degree ground. 
less. But let us consider this mighty argument, and see if Mr. T.’s 
limitation frees him from the charge of countenancing materialism, “in 
a very extensive degree.” 

Page 22. “The senses are necessarily impressed by every object 
from without, and as necessarily commove the fibres of the brain; from ~ 
which nervous commotion, ideas are necessarily cortitttanented to, or 
excited in the soul; and by the judgment, which the soul necessarily — 
frames of those ideas, the will is necessarily inclined to approve or dis- 
approve, to act or not toact. If so, where is the boasted power of self 
determination ?” ; 

This Mr. Toplady calls “a survey of the soul’s dependence on the 
body.” Page 27, he enforces the same doctrine in these words: “The — 
human body is necessarily encompassed by a multitude of other bodies. — 
Which other surrounding bodies, animal, vegetable, &c, so far as we 
come within their perceivable sphere, necessarily i impress our nerves 
with sensations correspondent to the objects themselves. These sensa- 
tions are necessarily, &c, propagated to the soul, which can no more 
help receiving them, and being affected by them, than a tree can resist 
a stroke of lightning. 

« Now, (1.) If all the ideas in the soul derive their existence from 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 317 


sensation; and, (2.) If the soul depend absolutely on the body, for all 
those sensations; and, (3.) If the body be both primarily and continu- 
ally dependent on other extrinsic beings, for the very sensations which 
it [the body] communicates to the soul ; the consequence seems to me 
undeniable, that neither man’s mental, aie his outward operations are 
self determined; but, on the contrary, determined by the views with 
which an infinity of surrounding objects necessarily, and almost inces- 
santly impress his intellect.” 

These arguments bring to my mind St. Paul’s caution : “ Beware, lest 
any man spoil you through philosophy, and vain deceit.” That Mr. 
T.’s scheme is founded on a vain philosophy, will, I hope, appear evi- 
dent to those who weigh the following remarks :— 

I. This scheme is contrary to genuine philosophy, which has always 
represented the soul as able to resist the strongest impressions of the 
objects that surround the body; and as capable of going against the 
wind and tide of all the senses. Even Horace, an effeminate disciple 
of Epicurus, could say, in his sober moments, 


> 
” Justum et tenacem propositi virum, &e. 


« Neither the clamours of a raging mob, nor the frowns of a threaten- 
ing tyrant; neither furious storms, nor roaring thunders can move a 
righteous man, who stands firm to his resolution. The wreck of the 
world might crush his body to atoms, but could not shake his soul with 
fear.” But Mr. T.’s philosophy sinks as much bejow the poor hea- 
then’s, as a man who is perpetually borne down and carried away by 
every object of sense around him, is inferior to the steady man, whose 
virtue triumphs over all the objects which strike his senses. 

II. This doctrine unmans man. For reason, or a power morally te 
regulate the appetites which we gratify by means of our senses, is what 
chiefly distinguishes us from other animals. Now if outward objects 
necessarily bias our senses, if our senses necessarily bias our judgment, 
and if our judgment necessarily bias our will and practice, what ad- 
vantage have we over beasts?) May we not say of reason, what heated 
Luther once said of free will; that it is an empty name, a mere non- 
entity?’ Thus Mr. Toplady’s “Scheme of Philosophical Necessity,” 
by rendering reason useless, saps the very foundation of all moral phi- 
losophy, and hardly allows man the low principle of conduct which we 
call instinct in brutes: nay, the very brutes are not so affected by the 
objects which strike their senses; but they often run away, hungry as 
they are, from the food which tempts their eye, their nose, and their 
belly, when they apprehend some danger, though their senses discover 
none. Beasts frequently act in full opposition to the sight of their eyes ; 
but the wretched scheme, which Mr. T. imposes upon us as Christian 
philosophy, supposes that all men necessaril y think, judge, and act, not 
only “according to the sight of their eyes,” but according to the im- 
pressions made by matter, upon all their senses. How would heathen- 
ish fatalists themselves have exploded so carnal a philosophy! 

Ill. As it sets aside reason, so it overthrows conscience, and “ the 
light which enlightens every man that comes into the world.” For of 
what use is conscience? Of what use is the internal light of grace, 
which enlightens conscience within, if man is necessarily determined 


378 REMARKS ON TOPLADY $ 


from withovt ; and if the objects which strike his senses, irresistibly turn — 


his judgment and his will; insomuch that he can no more resist their 
impression “than a tree can resist the stroke of lightning ?” iat 

IV. As this scheme leaves no room for morality, so it robs us of the 
very essence of God’s natural image, which consists chiefly in self acti- 
vily and self motion. For, according to Mr. T.’s philosophy, we cannot 
take one step, no, not in the affairs of common life, without an irresistible, 
necessitating impu'se. Yea, with respect to self activity, he represents 
us as inferior to our watches: they have their spring of motion within 
themselves, and they can go alone, if they are wound up once in twenty- 
four hours. But, if we believe Mr. T., our spring of motion is without 
us: nay, we have as many springs of motion as there are objects around 
us ; and these objects necessarily wind up our will from moment to mo- 
ment. For, by necessarily moving our senses, they necessarily move 
our understandings ; our understanding necessarily moves our will ; and 


our will necessarily moves our tongues, hands, and feet. Thus our will — 


and our body, like the wheels and body of a coach, never move but as 
‘they are moved, and cannot help moving when they are acted upon. 
How different is this mechanical religion from the spiritual religion 
which the learned and pious Dr. H. More inculcates in these words :— 
“The first degree of the Divine image was self motion or self activity. 
For mere passivity, or to be moved or acted by another, without a man’s 
will, &e, i is the condition of such as are either dead or asleep; as to go 
of a man’s self is a symptom of one alive or awake. _Men that are dead 
drunk may be haled, or disposed of where others please.” To be irre- 


sistibly acted upon is then to be “deprived of that degree of life which — 


is self activity, or the doing of things from an inward principle of free 
agency ; and therefore it is to be, so far, n a state of death.” 
Nor will Mr. T. mend the matter by urging that our understanding 


and our will are first necessarily moved and determined by the objects — 


which surround us. For the motion of a coach drawn by horses, and 
driven by a coachman, is not the less mechanical, because the smooth 


axletree, and the oiled wheels, being first set in motion, move the whole — 


coach by readily yielding to the impulse of the external mover. Were 
such wheels as full of consciousness and willingness as the mystic wheels 
of Ezekiel’s vision ; yet, so long as they moved by absolute necessity, or 


by an oil of willingness irresistibly applied to them from without, their — 


motion would not be more commendable than that of a well suspended 
and oiled wheel, which the touch of your finger moves round its axis. It 
turns indeed freely and (according to supposition) willingly : but yet, as 


it wills and moves irresistibly and passively, its moving and willing are — 


merely mechanical. So easy and short is the transition from the scheme 
of absolute necessity to that of universal mechanism ! 

V. If Mr. T.’s scheme of necessity be true, all sin may be ae 
charged upon Providence, who, by the “ surrounding objects which neces- 
sarily impress our intellect,” causes sin as truly, and as irresistibly, as a 
gunner causes the explosion of a loaded cannon, by the lighted mateh 
which he applies to the touch hole. And Eve was unwise when she 
said, “ The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat ;” for she might have said, 
é Lord, I have only followed the appointed law of my nature : for, pro- 
videntially coming within sight of the tree of knowledge, I perceived 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 379 


that ‘the fruit was good for food, and pleasant to the eye.’ It necessa- 
rily impressed my nerves with correspondent sensations; these sensa- 
tions were necessarily and instantaneously propagated to my soul ; and 
my soul could no more help receiving these forcible impressions, and 
eating in consequence of them, than a tree can resist a stroke of light- 
ning.” I should be glad to know with what justice Eve could have been 
condemned after such a plea, if Mr. 'T.’s scheme be true ? Especially if 
she had urged, as Mr. T’. does, p. 14, that God’s necessitation gives 
birth to “ providence ;” that is, “to the all-directing superintendency of 
Divine wisdom and power, carrying the whole preconcerted scheme into 
actual execution, by the subservient mediation of second causes [such as 
the fair colour of the fruit, and the eye of Eve] which were created for 
that end.” Can any man say, that if Mr. T. be right, Eve would have 
“ charged God foolishly ?” 

However, if Eve did not know how to exculpate herself properly, 
according to the doctrine of Divine necessitation, Mr. Toplady knows 
how to reduce his Gospel] to practice ; and therefore, in a, humorous 
manner, he justifies his illiberal treatment of his opponent thus: p. 10, 
“Mr. Wesley imagines that, upon my own principles, I can be no more 
than a clock. And if so, how can I help striking ? He himself has 
several times smarted for coming too near the pendulum.” What a 
sweet and profitable Gospel is this! Who would wonder, if all who 
love to “strike their fellow servants” should embrace Mr. Toplady’s 
system, as a comfortable “ doctrine of grace,” by which sin may be 
humourously palliated, and striking sinners completely justified ? 

VI. It is contrary to Scripture : for, if man be necessarily affected, 
and irresistibly wrought upon, or led by the forcible impressions of 
external objects, Paul spake like a heretical free willer when he said, 
“ All things [indifferent] are lawful for me; but I will not be brought 
under the power of any.” How foolish was this saying, if he could “no 
more help being brought under the irresistible power of the objects 
which surrounded him, than a tree can help being struck by the light- 
ning ?” 

VII. It is contrary to common sense: how can God reasonably set 
life and death, water and fire before us, and bid us choose eternal life, 
and living water, if surrounding objects work upon us, as the lightning 
works upon a tree on which it falls? And when the Lord commands 
the reprobates to choose virtue, afier having bound them over to vice by 
the adamantine chain of necessitation, does he not insult over their misery, 
as much as a sheriff would do, who, after having ordered the execu- 
tioner to bind a man’s hands, to fasten his neck to the gallows, and abso- 
lutely to drive away the cart from under him, should gravely bid the. 
wretch to choose life and liberty, and bitterly exclaim against him for 
“ neglecting so great” a deliverance ! 

VIII. It is contrary to the sentiments of all the Churches of Christ, 
except those of necessitarian Rome and Geneva: for they all reasonably 
require us to renounce the pomps of the world, and the alluring, sinful 
baits of the flesh. But if these pomps and baits work upon us by means 
of our senses, as necessarily, and determine our will as irresistibly as 
lightning shivers a tree, can any thing be more absurd than our baptis- 
mal engagements? Might we not as well seriously vow never to be 


380 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


struck by the lightning in a storm, as solemnly vow never to be led by, 
or follow the vanities of the world and the sinful lusts of the flesh? 

IX. It represents the proceedings of the day of judgment, as the most 
_ unrighteous, cruel, and hypocritical acts, that ever disgraced the tribunal 
* ofa tyrant. For if God, by eternal, absolute, and necessitating decrees, 
places the reprobates in the midst of a current of circumstances, which 
carries them along as irresistibly as a rapid river wafts a feather ; if he 
encompasses them with tempting objects, which strike their souls with — 
ideas, that cause sin in their hearts and lives, as inevitably as a stroke 
of lightning raises splinters in the tree which it shatters ; and if we can 
no more help being determined by these objects, which God’s providence 
has placed around us on purpose to determine us, than a tree can resist 
a stroke of lightning ; it unavoidably follows, that when God will judi- 
cially condemn the wicked, and send them to hell for their sins, he will 
act with as much justice as the king would do, if he sent to the gallows 
all his subjects who have had the misfortune of being struck with light. 
ning. Nay, to make the case parallel, we must suppose that the king 
has the absolute command of the lightning, and had previously struck 
them with the fiery ball, that he might subsequently condemn them to 
be hanged for having been struck, according to his absolute decree. . 

Should the reader, who is not yet initiated into the mystery of the 
Calvinian decrees, ask, if it be possible that rigid bound willers should 
fix so horrible a blot upon the characier of “ the Judge of all the earth ?” 
I answer in the affirmative ; and I prove, by the following words of Mr. 
Toplady, that, if Calvinism be true, the pretended sentence which the 
Judge shall pass in the great day, will be only a publication or ratification 
of the everlasting decrees, by which a Manichean deity absolutely — 
necessitates some men to repent and be saved, and others to sin and be 
damned. “ Christ,” says Mr. Toplady, in his Zanch. p. 87, “ will then 
properly sit as a Judge; and openly publish, and solemnly ratify his 
everlasting decrees, by receiving the elect, &c, into glory; and by 
passing sentence on the non-elect, [&c,] for their wilful ignorance of 
Divine things, and their obstinate unbelief,’ &c. It is true that after 
the word non-elect Mr. 'T. adds in a parenthesis these words, “ not for 
having done what they could not help.” But it is equally true that he — 
had no more right to add this parenthesis, than I have to say that the 
lightning is at my command: for, throughout his Scheme of Necessity, 
he attempts to prove that man is not “ self determined,” but érresistibly 
determined by some other being, viz. by God, who absolutely determines 
him by “second causes created for that end ;” forcible causes these, 
whose impressions are so strong, that we “ can no more help receiving 
them [and being determined by them] than a tree can resist a stroke of 
lightning.” Beside, if the non-elect are damned “ for their obstinate 
unbelief,” as Mr. T. tells us in his quotation ; and if it be as impossible 
for them to believe as to make a world, (an absurd maxim this, which is ¥ 
inculcated by rigid bound wiliers,) it is evident that the non-elect can no — 
amore help their unbelief, than they can help their incapacity to — 
a world. 

X. Mr. Toplady’s Scheme of Necessity places matter and its: icogsei 
sions far above spirit and its influence. If his philosophy be true. every — 
material object around us, by making necessary, irresistible impressions 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 381 


apon our minds, necessarily determines our will, and irresistibly impels 
our actions. According to this system, therefore, we cannot resist the 
powerful influence of matter: but, if we believe the Scriptures, we can 
«resist the Holy Ghost, and do despi‘e to the Spirit of grace.” Now, 
what is this, but to represent matter, (which is the God of the materialists, 
and the evil God of the Manichees,) as more active, quick, and powerful 
than spirit? Yea, than the Holy Spirit? 

Mr. Toplady may indeed say that the material objects, by which we 

are absolutely determined, are only God’s tools, by which God himself 
determines us: but, though this salvo may so far reconcile the Scheme 
of Necessity to itself; it will never reconcile it to such scriptures as 
these :—“ Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did. 
I would have gathered you, and ye would not.” And, what is still worse, 
it represents God as working Manichean iniquity by common adulterers 
and robbers, as forcibly as a miller grinds his corn, by the use he makes 
of a current of air or a stream of water. 
_ XI. The Scheme of Philosophical Necessity which I attack, supposes 
that God, to maintain order in the universe, is obliged to necessitate all 
events, from the wagging of a dog’s tail, or the rise of a particle of dust, 
to the murder of a king, or the rise of an empire. Thus Mr. T. tells us, 
in his preface to Zanchizs, p. 4, “ Bishop Hopkins did not go a jot too 
far in asserting,” that “ not a dust flies on a beaten road, but God raiseth 
it, conducts its uncertain motion, and, by his particular care, conveys it 
to the certain place he had before appointed for it: nor shall the most 
fierce and tempestuous wind hurry it any farther.” I object to this 
puerile system: (1.) Because it absurdly multiplies God’s decrees; 
rendering them not oaly as numerous as the sands on the sea shore, and 
the particles of dust on beaten roads, but also as countless as ali the 
motions of each grain of sand and particle of dust in all ages. At this 
rate, a large folio volume could not contain all the decrees of God 
concerning the least particle of dust; its rises and falls; its stops and 
hinderances ; its situations and modifications ; its whirlings to the right, 
or to the lefi, &c, &c. And, (2.) Because it represents God as being 
endued with less wisdom than a prudent king, who can maintaia good 
order in his kingdom without making particular laws or decrees to 
necessitate every eructation of his drunken soldiers, or every puff of his 
smoking subjects; and without ordaining every filthy jest which is u‘tered 
from the ale bench, appointing every loud invective which disturbs 
Billingsgate, and predestinating every wry face which the lunatics make 
in Bedlam. , 

XII. But what I chiefly dislike in this scheme, is its degrading all 
human souls in such a manner as to make them receive their moral 
excellence and depravity from the contexture of the brains by which 
they work, and from the place of the bodies in which they dwell. 
Insomuch, that all the difference there is between one who thinks loyally, 
and one who thinks otherwise ; between one who believes that Christ is 
God over all, and one who believes that he is a mere creature, consists, 
only in the make and position of their brains. Supposing, for example, 
that a gentleman has honourable thoughts of his king and of his Saviour, 
and is ready, from a principle of loyalty and faith, to defend the dignity 
of George the Third, and the divinity of Jesus Christ: supposing also, 


382 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


that another gentleman breaks, without ceremony, these two evangelical — 
precepts, ‘“‘ Honour the king,—Let all the angels of God worship him” 
[Christ ;] I ask, Why is their moral and religious conduet so opposite? 
Is it because the first gentleman’s free-willing soul has intrinsically more 
" reverence for the king and for our Lord? Because he keeps his heart 
more tender by faith and prayer, and his conscience more devoid of 
prejudice, through a diligent improvement of his talent, or through a 
more faithful use of his free agency, and a readier submission to the 
light that enlightens every man? No such thing; if Mr. T.’s scheme 
be true, the whole difference consists in “ mud walls,” and external 
circumstances. 

Page 33, “'The soul of a monthiy reviewer, if imprisoned within the 
same mud walls which are tenanted by the soul of Mr. John Wesley, 
would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act, (I verily think,) exactly 
like the bishop of Moorfields.” And, pp. 34, 35, he adds, “I just now 
hinted the conjecture of some, that a human spirit incarcerated in the 
brain of a cat, would probably both think and behave as that animal does. - 
But how would the soul of a cat acquit itself if inclosed im the brain of a 
man? We cannot resolve this question with certainty, any more than 
the other.” Admirable divinity! So Mr. Toplady leaves the orthodox 
in doubt: (1.) Whether when their souls, and the souls of cats, shall be 
let out of their respective brains or prisons, the souls of cats will not be — 
equal to the souls of men. (2.) Whether, supposing the soul of a cat had 
been put in the brain of St. Paul, or of a monthly reviewer, the soul of 
“ puss” would not have made as great an apostle as the soul of Saul of 
Tarsus; as good a critic as the soul of the most sensible reviewer. 
And, (3. ) Whether, in case the “ human spirit” [of Isaiah] “ were shut 

up in the skull of a cat, puss would not, notwithstanding, move prone on 
all four, purr when stroked, spit when pinched, and birds and mice be 
her darling objects of pursuit,” p. 34. Is not this a pretty large stride, 
for the first, toward the doctrine of the sameness of the souls of men 
with the souls of cats and frogs? Wretched Calvinism, new-fangled 
doctrines of grace, where are you leading your deluded admirers? your 
principal vindicators? Is it not enough that you have spoiled the fountain 
of living waters, by turning it into the muddy streams of Zeno’s errors? 
Are ye also going to poison it by the absurdities of Pythagoras’ philosophy ? 
What a side stroke is here inadvertently given to these capital doctrines = 

God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and he became a living 
soul,”—a soul made “ in the image of God,” and not in the image of a 
cat: “ the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth : but the spirit 
of man goeth upward : it returns to God who gave it,” with an intention 
to judge and reward it according to its moral works. 

But I must do Mr. Toplady justice : he does not yet recommend this | 
doctrine as absolutely certain. However, from his capital doctrine, that 
human souls have no free will, no inward principle of self determination; 
and from his avowed opinion, that the soul of one man, placed in the 
body of another man, “ would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act — 
“exactly like” the man in whose mud walls it is lodged ; it evidently fol. ; 
lows: (1.) That had the human soul of Christ been placed in the eh 
and circumstances of Nero, it would have been exactly as wicked 
atrocious as the soul of that bloody monster was. And,.(2.) That x4 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 383 


Nero’s soul had been placed in Christ’s body, and in his trying circum. 
stances, it would have been exactly as virtuous and immaculate as that. 
of the Redeemer: the consequence is undeniable.” Thus, the merit of 
the man Christ did not in the least spring from his righteous soul, but 
from his “mud walls,” and from the happiness which his soul had of 
being lodged in a “brain peculiarly modified.” Nor did the demerit 
of Nero flow from his free agency and self perversion; but only from 
his “mud walls,” and from the infelicity which his necessitated soul 
had of being lodged in an “11u-constructed vehicle,” and placed on that 
throne on which Titus soon after deserved to be called the darling of 
mankind. See, O ye engrossers of orthodoxy, to what absurd lengths 
your aversion to the liberty of the will, and to evangelical worthiness, 
leads your unwary souls! And yet, if we believe Mr. Toplady, your 
scheme, which is big with these inevitable consequences, is Christian 
philosophy, and our doctrine of free will is “ philosophy run mad!” 
XIII. If our thoughts and actions necessarily flowed from the modifi- 
cations of our brains, and from the impressions of the objects around us, 
it would necessarily follow, that as most men, throughout the whole 


- world, see the sun bright, snow white, and scarlet red: or as most men 


taste aloes bitter, vinegar sour, and honey sweet ; so most men would 
think, speak, and act nearly with the same moral uniformity which is 
perceivable in their bodily organs, and in the objects which affect those 
organs : and it would be as impossible to improve in virtue, by a proper 
exertion of our powers, and by a diligent use of our talents, as it is im- 
possible to improve the whiteness of the snow, or our power to see it 
white, by a, diligent use of our sight. At this rate too, conversion would 
not be so much a reformation of our spiritual habits as a reformation of 
our brains. 

XIV. But the worst consequences are yet behind: for if God works 
upon our souls in the same manner in which he works upon matter; if 
he raises our ideas, volitions, and passions, as necessarily as a strong 
wind raises the waves of the sea, with their roar, their foam, and their 
other accidents; in a word, if he works as absolutely and irresistibly 
upon spirit as he does upon matter; it follows that spirit and matter, 


being governed upom the same principles, are of the same nature ; and 


that if there be any difference between the soul and the body, it is only 
such a difference as there is between the tallow which composes a 
lighted candle, and the flame which arises out of it. The light flame is 
as really matter as the heavy tallow and the ponderous candlestick ; 
and all are equally passive and subject to the laws of absolute necessity. 
Again :— 

If virtue and vice necessarily depend on the modification of our brains, 
and the objects which surround us; it follows that the effect will cease 
with the cause, and that bodily dissolution will consign our virtue or vice 
to the dust, into which our brains and bodily organs will soon be turned ; 
and that when the souls of the righteous, and the souls of the wicked, 
shall be removed from their “mud walls,” and from the objects whic 
surround those mud walls, they will be (nearly at least) on a level with 
each other, if they are not on aJevel with the souls of cats and dogs. 
Lest Mr. Toplady’s admirers should think that prejudice makes me 
place his mistakes in too strong a light, [shall close these arguments by 


334 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


the judgment of the monthly reviewers. In their Review for 1775, they 
give us the following abridged account of Mr. Toplady’s Scheme. of 
Necessity :— 7 

“The old controversy concerning liberty and necessity has lately 
been renewed: Mr. Toplady avows himself a strenuous and very posl. 
tive champion on the side of necessity, and revives those arguments 
which were long since urged by Spinoza, Hobbes, &c, [two noted inf 
dels, or rather Atheistical materialists. ] It is somewhat singular in the 
history of this dispute, that those who profess themselves the friends of 
revelation, should so earnestly contend for a system which unbelievers 
have very generally adopted and maintained. ‘This appears the more 
strange, when we consider that the present asserters of necessity mani- 
fest a very visible tendency to materialism. Fate and universal me- 
chanism seem to be so nearly allied, that they have been usually defended 
on the same ground, and by the same advocates. Mr. Toplady indeed 
admits that the two component principles of man, body and soul, ‘a 
not only distinct but essentially different from each other.’ But it 
appears, in the sequel of his reasoning, that he has no high opinion of 
the nature and powers of the latter, [the soul.] _‘ An idea,” he observes, 
‘is that image, form, or conception of any thing which the soul is im- 
pressed with from without ;’? and he expressly denies that the soul has” 
any power of framing new ideas, different from or superior to those 
which are forced upon it by the bodily senses. ‘The soul,’ he affirms, 
‘is, in a very extensive degree, passive as matter itself.’ On his 
scheme, the limitation, with which he guards this assertion, is needa 
and futile.” 

While this Monthly Review is before me, I cannot help maces 
from it two other remarkable passages. The one occurs four pages 
after the preceding quotation. ‘The correspondents of the reviewers 
give them an account of an absurd and mischievous book, written by 
some wild Atheistical philosopher abroad, who thinks that all matter is 
alive, that the earth is a huge animal, and that we feed upon it, as some 
diminutive insects do upon the back of an ass. “ His moral doctrine,” 
say the reviewers, “is of a piece with the rest: the result of his reasor 
ing on this subject is, in his own words, ‘ Man, in every instant of his 
duration, is a passive instrument in the hands of necessity.’ Then let 
us drink and drice care away, drink, and be merry, as the old song says’ 
which is the practical application.” I would not be understood to 
charge this application upon Mr. Toplady; I only mention it, after 2 
reviewers, as a natural consequence of his system of necessity. 

The other passage is taken from the Review of Dr. Hartley’s* Theoi 
of the Human Mind, published by Dr. Priestley, who pleads as strongly 
for necessity as Mr. Toplady himself. 

‘«‘ Materialism,” say the reviewers, “has been, from early ages, con 
sidered as one of the chief bulwarks of Atheism. Accordingly, while 
Epicurus, and Hobbes, and their disciples, have endeavoured to defend 
it, Theists and Christians have pointed their batteries against it. But 
we learn from Dr. Priestley that perception, and all the mental powers 

* Mr. Toplady, page 148, intimates to his readers that Dr, Hartley has written 


an ‘“‘eminent defence of necessity,” and promises himself ‘‘a feast of — 
and instiuction” in reading his book. 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 385 


of man, are the result of such an organical structure as that of the 
brain. How would Epicurus, how would Collins have triumphed, had 
they lived to see this point [that the mental powers of man result from 
such an organical structure as that of the brain] given up to them, even 
by a Christian divine! Another discovery, very consonant to the first, 
is, that the whole man becomes extinct at death. For this concession 
Atheists will likewise thank him, as it has been one of the chief articles 
of their creed from the beginning of the world. Let us suppose, with 
Dr. Priestley, that all the mental powers of Julius Cesar result from the 
organical structure of his brain. ‘This organical structure is dissolved, 
and the whole man, Julius Cesar, becomes extinct; the matter of this 
brain, however, remains, but it is not Julius Cesar ; for he (ew hypothest) 
is wholly extinct.” 

Having produced a variety of arguments, which, I trust, will altogether 
have weight enough to sink Mr. Toplady’s Scheme of Necessity to the 
bottom of the sea of error, where a vain philosophy begat it on a mon- 
strous body of corrupted divinity, I shall conclude this section by setting 
my seal to the truths which border most upon Mr. Toplady’s error, and 
by which he is deceived, according to the old saying, Decipimur specie 
recti, ‘““ We embrace falsehood under the deceitful appearance of some 


truth.” . 


Mr. Toplady is certainly in the right, when he asserts that there is 
a close connection between our soul and body; and that each has a 
reciprocal influence on the other. We readily grant that a cheerful 
mind is conducive to bodily health, and that 


Corpus onustum 
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque pregrayvat una, 
Atque affigit humo divine particulam aure.—Hor. 


“The soul, which dwells in a body oppressed with last night’s excess, 
is clogged with the load which disorders the body.” Nor do we deny 
that, in a thousand cases, our bodies and our circumstances may prevent 
the full exertion of our spiritual powers, as the lameness of a horse, or 
its natural sluggishness, added to the badness of the road, may prevent 
the speed which a good rider could make if he had a better horse and 
a better road. But to carry this consideration as far as Mr. Toplady 
does, is as absurd as to suppose that the skill and expedition of a rider 


_ depend entirely on his beast, and on the goodness of the road. We like- 


= SS = 


a 


wise allow, that sometimes the soul may be as much overpowered by a 


disordered, dying body, as a rider, who is irresistibly carried away by a 
mad horse, or lies helpless under the weight of a dying horse. But, in 


| such cases, we do not consider the soul as accountable; as neither 


delirious persons, nor those who are dying of a paralytic stroke, are 
answerable for their actions and omissions im such peculiar circum- 
stances. 

Tn all other cases history furnishes us with a variety of examples of 
men, who, through a faithful use of their talents, have overcome the 
infelicity of their constitution and circumstances; while others, by a 
contrary conduct, have perverted the most happy constitution, and the 
most fortunate circumstances in life. Thus Socrates, by improving his 
light, mastered an unhappy constitution, which in his youth carried him, 

Vat. II. 


386 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


to violent anger, and an undue gratification of bodily appetites. A 
thus Solomon, by not improving his light, in his old age made shipwree 
of the wisdom, temperance, and piety, that distinguished him in 
youth. So Nero outlived the happy dispositions which made him shit 
in the former part of his life. - And Manasses, by “ humbling himsel 
before the God of his fathers,” overcame in his old age the horrid a 
abéminable propensities which constituted him a monster of iniquity 
his youthful days. 

Likewise, with respect to the circumstances in which we are place 
by Providence, I grant they have a considerable weight in the turn ¢ 
our affections. Nevertheless, this weight is by no means such as Mr. 
supposes. Diogenes might be as proud in his tub, as Alexander in] 
magnificent palace. A gown and a band may cover a revengeful clerg 
man, while a star and garter shine on a benevolent courtier. Cornelit 
turned to God in the army; and the sons of Eli went after Satan in fi 
temple. Domitian and Marcus Antoninus filled the same throne 
where the one astonished the universe by his wickedness, as the oth 
did by his virtue. Abraham and Agathocles were humble in the midst« 
riches ; and too many beggars are proud in the depth of poverty. So 
men are content in a sordid cottage; while others murmur in the me 
splendid palaces. The treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia was” 
seems) converted in the vanity of a heathen court; while Judas w 
perverted in the company of Christ and his fellow apostles. In sho 
while thousands, like Absalom, have turned out bad, notwithstanding t 
best instructions ; numbers, like the Philippian jailer, have turned 
well, maugre the worst education. Such is the power of free grace at 
free will. To lay therefore so much stress upon external circumstance 
is to undo by overdoing, and to wiredraw the truth till it is refined im 
error. f 

Upon the whole, we have Scripture and experience on our side wh 
we assert that reason, conscience, the “light which [in various degret 
enlightens every man,” the general assistance of Divine grace, a 
the peculiar or providential helps of God our Saviour, are m«¢ 
than sufficient savingly to overrule the infelicity of our bodily const 
tion, and our circumstances in life, if we are not wilfully and pervers 
wanting to ourselves; for “ of them to whom less is given, less will 
required :” and the advantages or disadvantages under which we labe 
shall all be taken into the account of our evangelical worthiness 
unworthiness, in the day when God shall judge us according to 
several editions of his everlasting Gospel, and according to the good 
bad use which we make of his talents of nature and grace. 


SECTION III. 


Remarks upon the manner in which Mr. T. attempts to support his § ch 
of Necessity from Scripture—Twelve keys to open the scriptures 
which he founds that scheme. 


We have seen how Mr. T. has propped up his system by vhs 
-cal arguments; let us now see how he does it by Scriptural proof 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY 387 


Page 54, he says, “ No man can consistently acknowledge the Divine 
authority of the Scriptures, without—being an absolute necessitarian.” 
To demonstrate this strange proposition, he produces, among many 
more, the passages which mention the case of Joseph and his brethren, 
the Lord and Pharaoh, Eli and his sons, Absalom and his father’s wives, 
Shimei and Dayid, Christ and his crucifiers, &c. As I have shown, in 
other publications, that these scriptures, when taken in connection with 
the context and the tenor of the Bible, perfectly agree with the doctrines 
of justice, which are inseparably connected with the doctrine of free 
will in man, and just wrath in God; J shail not swell this tract by vain 
repetition, especially as Mr. T. does not support by argument the sense 
which he fixes on these passages. However, that the public may see 
_ what method he follows in trying to vindicate his error from Scripture, I 
shall present my readers with some keys, by which they will easily open 
the scriptures which he misapplies, and discover the rotten foundation 
_ of Calvinism. 
: First key. Detaching a passage of Scripture from the context, 
that what God does for particular reasons may appear to be done 
absolutely, and from mere sovereignty, is a polemical stratagem, com- 
| monly used by the Calvinists. The first passage which Mr. 'T. produces 
| draws all its apparent conclusiveness from this artful method :-— 
Page 56. “I withheld thee from sinning against me,” Gen. xx,6. By 
: quoting this detached clause, Mr. T. would insinuate that while God 
absolutely ordains some men to sin, he absolutely withholds other men 
from sin. To see that his conclusion is unscriptural, we need only read 
the whole verse: “God said to him [Abimelech] in a dream, Yea, I 
know that thou didst this in the InTEGRITY OF THY HEART, for I also 
withheld thee from sinning against me, therefore I suffered thee not to 
touch her.” Now, who that adverts to the words in capitals, does not 
see that God’s keeping Abimelech from sinning, that is, from marrying 
Abraham’s wife, was a REWARD of Abimelech’s INTEGRITY, as well as 
| of Abraham’s piety? Therefore, this very text proves, that God 
rewards upright free will with restraining grace, as well as with glory ; 
and not that man has no free will, and that he is made willing to work 
righteousness, or to commit sin, as necessarily as puppets are made to 
move to the right or to the left by the show man, who absolutely causes 
and manages their steps. Take another instance of the same stratagem,—. 
Page 66. “ The Lord of hosts hath sworn, i. e. hath solemnly and 
| immutably decreed, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to 
pass; and as I have purposed, so shall tt stand.” Here Mr. Toplady 
breaks off the quotation, and leaves out what follows, “that I will break 
| the Assyrian,” that is, the wicked in general, but particularly Sennache- 


rib, the proud, blaspheming king of Assyria, whose immense army was 

cut off in one night by an angel; “and upon my mountains tread him 
| under foot,” &c. By this means Mr. T. makes his hasty readers 
_ believe that God speaks of a Calvinian, absolute decree, founded upon 
Antinomian grace and free wrath; and not of a judicial, retributive 
decree, founded upon the humility of the righteous, and the desert of 
the wicked; though, verse 13, &c, the decree,*and its cause, are thus 
expressly mentioned :—« Thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into 
heaven, &c, I will be like the Most High, Gc. Yet thou shalt be 


| 


388 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


brought down to hell.” When Mr. T. has hidden these keys 
doctrine of justice which we defend, it is easy for him to apply to 
doctrine of free wrath the peremptoriness of God’s decree, and accor 
ingly he triumphs much in these words :—“ This is the purpose wh 
is purposed upon all the earth, &c. For the Lord of hosts hath px 
posed, and who shall disannul it? And his hand is stretched out, a 
who shall turn it back?” Isa. xiv, 24, &e. “Who shall disannul 
purpose ?” (adds Mr. T.) “ Why, human free will to be sure! 
shall turn back God’s hand? Human self determination can do it wi 
as much ease as our breath can repel the down of a feather!” ' 
argument is full fraught with absurdity. Did we ever assert that whe 
free will has obstinately simned, it can reyerse an absolute decree 
punishment? Do we not, on the contrary, maintain the proper exerti 
of justice in opposition to the Calvinian dreams of absolute election a 
reprobation, according to which the salvation of some notorious i 
penitent sinners is. now actually finished, and the damnation of sor 
unborn infants is now absolutely secured ? 
Page 67. By a similar method Mr. T. tries to prove the doctrine | 
necessitating free wrath, thus :—“J have smitten you with blasting a1 
mildew. I have sent you the pestilence. Your young men have 
slain with the sword!” Amos iv, 7-10. But he forgets to tell us th 
this severity is not Calvinistical and diabolical, but righteous and ju 
cially retributive ; for the persons thus punished are said, just befoi 
to be wicked men, “ who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, wl 
say to their masters, Bring [strong drink] and let us drink,” Amos iy, 
Therefore all that can be inferred from these, and a thousand su 
scriptures, is, that when free agents have obstinately sinned, punishme 
overtakes them whether they will or not. And when the Calyinists grout 
their Manichean notions of a wrathful, absolute sovereignty in God up 
such conclusions, they expose their good sense as much as I shou 
expose my reason, if I said, “I can demonstrate that all robbers al 
absolutely necessitated to go on the highway, because, when they al 
caught and condemned, they are absolutely necessitated to go to th 
gallows.” 
Srconp Key. Because God can do a thing, and does it on parti¢ 
Jar occasions, Mr. T. and his adherents infer that he does it alway 
Thus, to prove that God necessarily turns the hearts of all men, at all 
times, and in all places, to sin or to righteousness, Mr. T. produces" 
following text :— rg 
Page 65. “ Even the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, asi 
rivers of water: and he turneth it whithersoever he will, Proy. xxi, 
Odd sort of self deiermination this!” We never denied the sup 
power, which God has even over the hearts of proud kings, who g 
rally are the most imperious of men. When he will absolutely | 
their will for the accomplishment of some providential design, his 
dom and omnipotence can undoubtedly do it. Thus, by letting the Phi- 
listines Joose upon Saul’s dominions, God turned his heart, and mat 
him change his design of immediately surrounding and destroying Day 
Thus he turned the heart of Ahasuerus from his purpose of destroyimg 
the Jews, by the providential reading of the records, which remin 
the king of the obligation he was under to Mordecai. Thus he turned 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 389 


the heart of Pharaoh toward Joseph, by giving Joseph wisdom to explain 
his prophetic dream. Thus, again, he turned the heart of Nebuchad- 
nezzar from his purpose of destroying Daniel and all the wise men in 
Babylon, by enabling Daniel to tell and open the king’s mysterious vision. 
And when the king of Assyria was bent upon making war against the 
Israelites and the Ammonites, and cast lots to know which he should 
destroy first, Rabbah or Jerusalem, God providentially ordered the lot 
to fall upon guilty Jerusalem, Isa. x, 6, 7; Ezek. xxi, 21, &c. For, 


_ in such cases, “the lot is cast into the lap” without an eye to the Lord, 
_ “but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord,” Prov. xvi, 33. But 
_ these peculiar interpositions of Providence no more prove that God 


absolutely turns the hearts of all kings, and of all men in all things, and 
on all occasions, as Mr. T.’s system supposes, than a farrier’s drench- 
ing now and then a horse, in peculiar circumstances, proves that all 


_ horses throughout the world never drink but when they are drenched. 


Turrp key. ‘The necessitarians confound our inability to do some 


_ or all things, with an inability to do any thing. Thus Mr. T. attempts 
_ to prove that we can do nothing but what we are necessitated to do, and 
_ that “Christ himself was an absolute necessitarian,” by the following 


argument :-— 
Page 71. “Thou canst not make one hair white or black. Your 


|. Father, &c, makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth 


rain on the just and the unjust. Surely, man can neither promote nor 
hinder the rising of the sun, nor the falling of the rain.” But to con- 


_ elude that all things are absolutely necessary, because we cannot alter 


the colour of our hair, command the clouds, and hasten sun rising, is as 
absurd as to conclude that a dyer cannot absolutely alter the colour of 
the silks which he dyes, because he cannot change the colour of his 
own hair, or eyes. It is as ridiculous as to infer that we cannot move 
a pebble, because we cannot stir a mountain; that we cannot turn our 
eyes like men, because we cannot turn our ears like horses; and that 
we have no immediate command of our thoughts and hands, because 
we have no immediate command of the clouds and the sun. When 
Mr. T. imposes such a philosophy upon us, is he not as grossly mis- 
taken as Mons. Voltaire, his companion in necessitarianism, who gives 
us to understand, that because pear trees can bear no fruit but pears, 
men can bear no moral fruit but such as they actually produce, and that 
fate fixes our thoughts in our brains, as necessarily as nature fixes our 
teeth in our jaw bones? How absurd is a system of philosophy, which 
a Voltaire and a Toplady are obliged to prop up by such weak argu- 
ments as these! 

Fourrn key. The Calvinists suck Scriptural metaphors, till they im- 
bibe the blood of error instead of “the sincere milk of the word!” And, 
if I might compare Scripture comparisons to rational animals, I would 
say, that Mr. T’. makes them go upon all four. Hence it is that he says,— 

Page 58, “ Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward, Job 
y, 7: and I am apt to think, sparks ascend by necessity.” By this me- 
thod of arguing, I can demonstrate that Christ was clothed with feathers ; 

rhe says, I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her brood. “ And 

m apt to think” that a hen is covered with feathers. However, I 
stant to Mr. T. that there is a necessity of fallen nature: according 


- 


390 REMAKKS ON TOPLADY’S 


to this necessity, man is born to die, and in the meantime he is exposed 
to the troubles which naturally accompany mortality. But there are ; 
thousand troubles which flow from immorality, and which God puts 
in man’s power to avoid. To deny this, is to deny the following seri 
tures :—“ He that will love his life, and see good days, let him refrai 
his tongue from evil. Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him see 
peace and ensue it, 1 Pet. iii, 10, 11. Whoso keepeth his mouth anc 
his tongue, keepeth his soul from troubles,” Prov. xxi, 23. It is there 
fore absurd and unscriptural to suppose, that, because we cannot avoi 
‘ every trouble in life, all canting gossips are absolutely bound to bring 
upon themselves all the troubles which their slanderous, lying tongues 
pull down upon their own heads. 

Firra «ey. If there occur in the Bible a poetical expression 
founded upon some common, though erroneous opinion, to which th 
sacred penmen accommodate their language in condescension to th 
vulgar, Calvinism fixes upon that expression, and produces it as a 
demonstration of what she calls orrnopoxy. ‘Thus Mr. T., p. 
builds his scheme on the following texts :— 

The stars in their courses fought against Sisera, Judges v, 20. It} 
as absurd to prove fatalism from these words, as it would be to provi 
that the earth is the fixed centre of our planetary system, by quoting 
the above-mentioned words of our blessed Lord, “ Your Father make: 
his sun to rise on the just.” , The best philosophers, as well as Chris 
to be understood by the common people, say, agreeably to a false ph 
sophy, The sun rises, though they know that it is the earth which turn 
Yound on her axis toward the fixed sun. As we say the crown, whet 
we mean “the reigning king ;” and put heaven for “ the King of heaven: 
so Deborah poetically said in her song, The stars in their courses, fo 
“the providential power which keeps the planets in their courses.” 
Herein she, probably, adapted her language to some false notions 0} 
astrology, which the Israelites had received from the Egyptians. An 
all that she meant was that God had peculiarly assisted the Israelites i 
their battle with Sisera. 


expressions, so they do upon proverbial sayings. ‘Thus, p. 88, Mi 
Toplady endeavours to support the doctrine of absolute necessity, or ¢ 
the Calvinian decrees, by these words of our Lord :— 


from all eternity made particular decrees, to appoint that men shoul 
shave so ay times every week, and that such and such a hair of 7 


ing grown just so many days. This text is only a proverbial hea i 
that which is sometimes used among us: “I will not give way to e 
a hair’ s breadth.” As this expression means only, “I will fully 
error ;” so the other only means, “ You shall be fully protected. Pe ere- 
fore to build Calvinian necessity upon such a scripture, is to render th 
pillars of Calvinism as contemptible as the hairs which the barber wip 
off his razor, when he shaves my mistaken opponent. ” 

Srnvenru key. The word shail frequently implies a kind of nece 
sity, and a forcible authority: thus a master says to his arguing ser 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 39 


vant, “ You shall do such a thing: I will make you do it, whether you 
will or not.” Mr. Toplady avails himself of this idea, to impose his 
scheme of necessity upon the ignorant. I say upon the ignorani, be- 
cause he quotes again and again passages, where the word shall has 
absolutely no place in the original. For example :— 

Pages 84, 87, 92, he tries to prove that Christ was “an absolute 
necessitarian,” by the following texts :—I send unto you prophets, &c, 
and some of them ye suaut kill, and some of them swaLu ye scourge: 
One of you, Fe, sHauu betray me. Ye all suaut be offended because 
of me. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold ; them also [from a 
principle of superior kindness, or of remunerative favour] I musr bring ; 
and they saat hear my voice. I musr, and they suauu: what is this 
but double necessity?” In these, and in many such scriptures, the word 
ye shall kill, gc, in the original is a Bare future tense. And for want 
of such a tense in English, we are obliged to render the words which 
are in that tense by means of the words shall or will. These auxiliary 


‘words are often used indiscriminately by our translators, who might as 


well, in the preceding texts, have rendered the Greek verbs wrx kill, 


| WILL scourge, wit betray, witt be offended, witu hear my voice. 


Therefore, to rest Calvinism upon such vague proofs is to rest it upon 
a defect in the English language, and upon the presumption that the 


_ reader is perfectly unacquainted with the original. 


Exeuru key. As Mr. T.’s scheme partly rests upon a supposition 
that his readers are unacquainted with the Greek grammar ; so it sup- 


poses that they are perfect strangers to ancient geography. 


Hence it is that he says, p. 89, “ Our Lord knew her [the woman of 
Samaria] to be one of his elect: and that she might be converted pre- 
cisely at the very time appointed, he must needs go through the territory 
of Samaria, John iv, 4.” Mr. Whitefield builds his peculiar orthodoxy 
on the same slender foundations, where he says, “ Why must Christ 
needs go through Samaria? Because there was a woman to be converted 
there.” (See his Works, vol. iv, p. 356.) Now the plain reason why our 
Lord went through Samaria was, that he went from Jerusalem to Galilee ; 
and as Samaria lies exactly between Judea and Galilee, he must needs 
go through Samaria, or go a great many miles out of his way. Absurdity 
itself, therefore, could hardly have framed a more absurd argument. 

Nuiyru Key. One of the most common mistakes on which the Cal- 
vinists found their doctrine is, confounding a necessity of consequence 
with an absolute necessity. A necessity of consequence is the necessary 
connection which immediate causes have with their effects, immediate 
effects with their causes, and unavoidable consequences with their pre- 
mises. ‘Thus, if you run a man through the heart with a sword, by 
necessity of NATURAL consequence he must die: and if you are caught, 
and convicted of having done it like an assassin, by necessity of LEGAL 
consequence you must die. Thus again: if I hold that God, from all 
eternity, absolutely fixed his everlasting wrath upon others, without any re- 
spect to their works ; by necessity of LocicaL consequence I must hold that 
the former were never children of wrath, and must continue God’s plea- 
sant children while they commit the most atrocious crimes; and that 
the latter were children of wrath while they seminaily existed, together 
with the man Christ, in the loins of sinless Adam, before the fall. 


ce 


C2 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


Now these three strong necessities of consequence do not amount to one 
grain of Calvinian, absolute necessity; because, though the above 
tioned effects and consequences necessarily follow from their causes 
premises, yet those causes and premises are not absolutely necessary. T, 
be more plain: though a man, whom you run through the heart to ro 
him without opposition, must die; and though you must suffer as a 
murderer for your crime, yet this double necessity does not prove tha 
you were absolutely necessitated to go on the highway, and to murde 
the man. Again: though you must (indirectly at least) propagate the 
most detéstable errors of Manes, (i. e. the worship ofa double-principled 
Deity,) if you preach a God made up of absolute, everlasting love to sa 
and of absolute everlasting wrath to others; yet you are not necessi- 
tated to do this black work ; because you are by no means necessitate¢ 
to embrace and propagate this black principle of Calvin. Once more: 
by necessity of consequence, a weak man who drinks to excess is 
drunk ; yet his drunkenness is not Calvinistically necessary ; because, 
though the man cannot help being drunk if he drinks to excess, yet he 
can help drinking to excess: or, to speak in general terms, though he 
cannot prevent the effect, when he has admitted the cause ; yet he can 
prevent the effect by not admitting the cause. However, Mr. Toplady, 
without adverting to this obvious and important distinction, takes it fo 
granted .that his readers will subscribe to his doctrine of absolute 
necessity, because a variety of scriptures assert such necessity of 
sequence as I have just explained. ‘Take the following instances :— 

Page 83. “ How can ye escape the damnation of hell?” ‘These words 
of Christ do not prove sb reprobation and absolute necessity; 


of consequence) infallibly Bet with the damnation of hell. Page 91. 
“Tf the Son shall make you free, [and he shall make us free, if we will 
continue in his word,] ye shall [by necessity of consequence] be freé 
indeed.” Again, p. 92, “ Why do ye not understand my speech? Ever 
because [while you hug your prejudices] ye cannot hear my word” [with 
the least degree of candour.] This passage does not prove Calvinian 
necessity ; it declares only that while the Jews were biassed by the love 
of honour, rather than by the love of truth, by necessity of consequence 
they could not candidly hear, and cordially receive Christ’s humbling 
doctrine. ‘Thus he said to them, “ How can ye believe, who receive 
honour one of another?” (Ibid.) “He that is of God heareth God’s 
words ; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.” Here 
is no Siren but only a plain declaration, that by necessity of conse. 
quence no man can serve two masters; no man can gladly receive thi 
truths of God, who gladly-receives the lies of Satan. (Ibid.) “ Ye beliew 
not, because ye are not of my sheep:” that is, you eagerly follow the 
prince of darkness. “The works of your father, the devil, ye will* do;” 
and therefore, by necessity of consequence, ye cannot do the work 
God; ye cannot follow me ; ye cannot rank among my sheep. Again:— 

Page 93. “I give my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, 


* Our Lord, when he spake these words, did not use a bare future, wormoere, whie 
Mr. T. would perhaps have triumphantly translated, ye suauu do; putting the 
word sHALL in large capitals; but @edere corey, a phrase this, which i is peculiarly 
expressive of the obstinate choice of the Sree- -willing Jews. 


eg 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 393 


John x, 283i. e. their salvation is necessary, and cannot be hindered.” 
True: it is necessary, but it is only so by necessity of consequence: for 
damnation follows unbelief and disobedience, as punishment does sin ; 
and eternal salvation follows faith and obedience, as rewards follow 
good works. But this no more proves that God necessitates men to sin 
or to obey, than hanging a deserter, and rewarding a courageous soldier, 
prove that the former was absolutely necessitated to desert, and the 
latter to play the hero. Once more :— 

Page 94. “I will pray the Father, and he shail give you another 
Comforter,—acvhom the world cannot receive” [as a comforter without 
a proper preparation.] Now this no more proves that the world can- 
not absolutely receive the Comforter, than my asserting that Mr. Top 
lady could not take a degree at the university, before he had learned 
grammar, proves that he was for ever absolutely debarred from that 
literary honour. If the reader be pleased to advert to this distinction, 
between necessity of consequence and absolute necessity, he will be able 
to steer safe through a thousand Calvinian rocks. 

Tenru Key. ‘The preceding remarks lead us to the detection of 
another capital mistake of the orthodox, so called. They perpetually 
confound natural necessity with what may (improperly speaking) be 
called moral necessity. By natural necessity, infants are born naked, 
and colts are foaled with a coat on; men have two legs, horses four, 
and some insects sixteen. And by moral necessity, servants are bound 
to obey their masters, children their parents, and subjects their king. 
Now can any thing be more unreasonable than to infer that servants can 
no more help obeying their masters, than children can help being born 
with two hands? Is it not absurd thus to confound natural and moral 
necessity ? This however Mr. T. frequently does; witness the follow- 
ing scriptures, which he produces in defence of absolute necessity :— 

Page 62,&c. “He [the Lord] made a decree for the rain, and a 
way for the lightning of the thunder. By the breath of God frost is 
given, Job. He maketh grass to grow. He giveth snow like wool : he 
scattereth the hoar frost like ashes. Who can stand before his cold ? 
He causes his wind to blow. Fire and hail, snow and vapour, &c, fulfil 
his word,’ Psalms. From these and the like circumstances, Mr. T. 
infers that all things happen “by a necessity resulting from the will and 
providence of the supreme First Cause.” 

That nothing happens independently on that cause, and on the provi- 
dential laws which God has established, we grant. But this does not 
prove at all the Calvinian necessity of all our actions. Nor does it 
prove that man, who is made in God’s image, cannot, within his narrow 
sphere, frequently exert his delegated power at his own option, by 
making and executing his own decrees. 

If Mr. T. denies it, 1 appeal to his own experience and candour. 
Can he not, by a good fire, reverse in his apartment God’s decree of 
frost in winter; and by a candle can he not in his room reverse God’s 
decree of darkness at midnight? Can he not, by icy, cooling draughts, 
elude the decree of heat in summer? Nay, cannot a gardener, by 
skilfully distributing heat to vegetables in a hot house, force a pine apple 
to ripen to perfection in the midst of winter?) And by means of a 


watering pot can he not command an artificial rain to water his drooping 
~ 


394 REMARKS ON TOPLADY S 


plants i. the greatest drought of summer? Again: cannot a philoso- 


pher, acquainted with the secret laws of nature, imitate, as often as he — 


pleases, most decrees of the God of nature?, Can he not form and 
collect dews, by raising artificial vapours in an alembic? Can he not, 
when he has a mind, cause diminutive thunder and lightning by means 
of an electrical machine? Can he not create ice, snow, and hoar frost, 
by nitrous salts? Can he not produce little earthquakes, by burying in 
the ground iron filings and sulphur mixed with water? And while he 

“raises a wind by managing a communication of rarified air with con- 
densed air, cannot a smith do it without half the trouble by working his 
bellows? Once more: cannot a physician do in the little world within 
you, what a philosopher does without you in the world of nature? By 
availing himself of some natural Jaw, is it not in general as much in his 
power, if you submit to his decrees, to raise an artificial blister on your 
back, as it is in your gardener’s to raise a sallad in your garden? By 
skilfully setting the powers of nature at work, can he not cleanse your 
intestines, as yonder farmer scours his ditches? Can he not, in general, 
assuage his pains by lenitives, or lull them asleep by opiates? Can he 
not, through his acquaintance with the means by which God preserves 
the animal world, often promote the secretion of your fluids, and supply 
the want of those which are exhausted? Nay, can you not do it your- 
self by using that cheap medicine, ewercise, and by taking those agreeable 
boluses and pleasant draughts which you call meat and drink? 'To say 
that nature cannot be, in many respects, assisted, and even improved by 
art, is to say that there are neither houses nor cities in the world; neither 
shoes on our feet, nor clothes on our back. And to affirm that the works 
of art are as absolutely necessary as the works of nature, is to confound 
nature and art, and to advance one of the most monstrous paradoxes 
that ever disgraced human reason. 

Exeventa key. Confusion reigns in every corner of Babel. 
Another capital mistake of the necessitarians consists in their confound- 
ing prophetic certainty with absolute necessity. An illustration will 
explain my meaning :-— 

Mr. Toplady discovers a boy who is absolutely bent upon theft 
From his knowledge of the force of indulged habits, he foresees and 
foretels that the boy will one day come to the gallows; and his predic- 
tion is fulfilled. The question is, Did Mr. T.’s foresight, or his prophecy, 
necessitate the thievish boy to indulge his wicked habit ; and might not 
that boy have done like many more? Might he not have reformed, and 
died in his bed? Calvinism answers in the negative; but reason and 
Scripture agree to declare that a clear foresight, and a bare prophecy, 


are not of an absolutely necessitating nature ; and that, of consequence, — 
it is as absurd to confound absolute necessity with certainty of prophecy, 


[if I may use this expression,] as it is to confound the free abode of the 
keepers in Newgate, with the necessary abode of the felons who are 
confined there under bars and locks: in a word, it is as absurd as to 
confound the necessity of an event with the certainty of it. Your 
awkward servant has, at various times, b xken you a number of china 
plates : that the plates are broken is cer, in; but that they were Cal- 
vinistically broken, that is, that your servain could no ways avoid break- 


ing them ail, precisely in the manner, place, and instaat m wnich they 
— al 


oo — 


PHILUSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 395 


were broken, is a proposition as absurd as the proof which Mr. T., 
page 83, draws from the following sentences of the Scriptures, to de. 
monstrate that our Lord was Calvinistically necessitated to lay down 
his life for us :—“ How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus 
it must be? Matt. xxvi, 54. All this was done that the Scriptures of 
the prophets might be fulfilled,” verse 56. ‘To do these passages jus- 
tice, we should consider three things :— 

1. The necessity of fulfilling the Scriptures with respect to our Lord, 
could never amount to the least degree of absolute, Calvinian necessity ; 
for our Lord was no more obliged to give us the Scriptures in order to 
fulfil them, than Mr. T. is bound to give me a thousand pounds in order 
to get my thanks. 

2. When we meet with such sayings as these, “ This that is written 
must yet be accomplished in me: the Scripture must be fulfilled,” &e, 
if they relate to Christ, they only indicate a necessity of resolution, if I 
may use this expression. Now, a necessity of resolution is the very 
reyerse of absolute necessity ; because a resolution is the offspring of 
free will, and may be altered by free will; whereas Calvinian necessity 
never admits of a liberty or power to do a thing otherwise than it is 
done. J resolve to go out this evening, and I write my resolution ; but 
this does not imply any absolute necessity : rmsT, because I am at per- 
fect liberty not to make such a resolution; and, seconpiy, because [ 
am at perfect liberty to break it, and I shall certainly do it, if some 
sufficient reason detains me at home. 

Take a nobler example : God resolved to give Abraham and his seed 
the land of Canaan “for an everlasting possession ;” and the Divine 
resolution is written, Gen. xvii, 8, and xlviii, 4. But this does not imply 
the least degree of Calvinian necessity: for, (1.) Reason dictates that 
God was no ways obliged to form such a resolution; and, (2:) Expe- 
rience teaches us, that the obstinacy of the Jews has obliged him to 
make them “ know the breach” of his written resolution, Num. xiv, 34. 
Accordingly, they are scattered over all the world, instead of enjoying 
the promised land “for an everlasting possession.” 

3. When prophetical sayings refer to the wicked, as in the following 
texts, This cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled, which is 
written in the law, They hated me without a cause : the son of perdition 
is lost ; that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. They believe not on him, 
that the saying of Esaias might be fulfilled, Lord, who has believed our 
report? ‘These and the like passages denote only a prophetic necessity, 
founded upon God’s bare foresight of what will be, but might as well 
(nay, better) have been otherwise. Thus I prophesy that through logi- 
cal necessity I shall (in full opposition to orthographical necessity) put a 
colon, instead of a full point, at the end of the paragraph I am now 
writing : but this double necessity of prophecy and logic is so far from 
absolutely necessitating me, that I have almost a mind to follow the 
rules of punctuation, and to show, by this mean, that I am as much at 
liberty to reverse my prophetic, logical decree, as God was to reverse 
his prophetic, vindictive decree, “ Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be 
destroyed” (:) 

However, my decree is accomplished. What was an hour ago a 
future contingency, is now matter of fact. The preceding period is 


396 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


concluded without a full point as certainly as God exists. Should Mr, 
T. object that I could foresee this contingent event, because I had a 
mind to bring it about: I reply, That this does not invalidate my proof: 
for, (1.) I foresaw this little event as contingent, and depending on my 
liberty, and of consequence I could not foresee it as absolutely neces. 
sary. (2.) I have a clear foresight of many things, in which I have no 
hand at all. Thus I foresee that a man, condemned to be hanged for 
murder, shall certainly be hanged, whether I do the executioner’s office 
or not. Though the murderer might be reprieved; though he might 
make his escape, or poison himself before the day of execution; yet, 
from my knowledge of the law, of the king’s aversion to murder, of the 
strength of the prison, and of the particular care taken of condemned 
criminals, my foreknowledge that the condemned murderer shall be 
hanged, amounts to a very high degree of certainty. Now, if I, whose 
foreknowledge, compared to the foreknowledge of God, is no more than 
a point to the infinity of space; if I, who am so short sighted, can, 
with such a degree of certainty, foresee an event which is not absolutely 
necessary ; is it not absurd, I had almost said impious, to suppose that 
God’s foreknowledge of events, which are not absolutely necessary, 
may amount to absolute necessity? Cannot God foresee future events 
without necessitating them, a thousand times more clearly than I can 
foresee what I am sure I shall not ordain, much less necessitate, namely, 
that Mr. T.’s prejudice will hinder him from treating Mr. W. with the 
respect due to an aged, laborious minister of Christ? — 

To deny that God’s certain knowledge of future events is consistent 
with our liberty, because we cannot understand how God can certainly 
foresee the variations of our free will; to deny this, I say, is to deny . 
the existence of all the things which we cannot fully comprehend, And 
at this rate, what is it that we shall not deny? What is it that we per- 
fectly understand? Is there one man in ten thousand that understands 
how astronomers can certainly foretel the very instant in which an 
eclipse will begin? But does this ignorance of the vulgar render astro- 
nomical calculations less real or certain? And may not God (by the 
good leave of the necessitarians) surpass all men in his foreknowledge 
of the actions of free agents, as much as Sir Isaac Newton surpassed 
all the Hottentots in his foreknowledge of eclipses ? 

From these remarks it appears, that all the difficulties which the 
Calvinists have raised, with respect to the consistency of Divine fore- 
knowledge and human free will, arise from two mistakes: the First of 
which consists in supposing that the simple, certain knowledge of an 
event, whether past, present, or future, is necessarily connected with a 
peculiar influence on that event; and,the srconp consists in measuring 
God’s foreknowledge by our own, and supposing that because we can- 
not prophesy with absolute certainty, what free-willing creatures will do 
to-morrow, therefore God cannot do it. A conclusion this, which is as 
absurd as the following argument :—* We cannot create a grain of sand, 
nor comprehend how God could create it, and therefore God could nei- 
ther create a grain of sand, nor comprehend how it was to be created,” 

I have dwelt so long upon this head, because it is the strong hold of 
the Calvinists, from which Mr. T. seems to bid defiance to every argu- 
ment; witness his assertion, p. 80, “ Foreknowledge, undarkened by the 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 397 


least shadow of ignorance, and superior to all possibility of mistake, is a 
link which draws invincible necessity after it.” To the preceding argu- 
ments, which, I trust, fully prove the contrary, I shall add one more, 
which is founded on the plain words of Scripture. 

_ So sure as the Bible is true, Mr. T. is mistaken; and God’s fore- 
knowledge, far from being connected with “ invincible necessity,” may 
exist, not only with respect to an event which is not necessary, but also 
with respect to an event which is so contingent, that it never comes to 
pass. ‘Take a proof of it:— 

We read, 1 Sam. xxiii, 10-12, that David, while he was im the city 
of Keilah, heard that Saul designed to come and surprise him there. 
“ Then aaa David, O Lord God of Israel, &c, will Saul come down 
as thy servant has heard? And the Lord said, He witt come pown. 
Then David said, Will the men of Keilah deliver me into the hand of 
Saul? And the Lord said, Tuey witn peLiver THEE uP.” When 
David had received this double information he went out of Keilah, and 
when Saul heard it he did not come to Keilah, neither did the men of 
Keilah deliver him to Saul. From this remarkable occurrence we learn, 
(1.) That future, contingent events are clearly seen of God. (2.) That 
this foresight of God has not the least influence on such events. (3.) That 
God can foretel such events as contingent. And, (4.) That neither 
Scripture prophecy, nor Divine foreknowledge, has the least connection 
with Mr. T.’s scheme of absolute, invincible necessity ; since God fore- 
knew that, if David stayed in Keilah, Saul would come down, and the 
men of Keilah would deliver David into his hands. But so far were this 
clear foreknowledge and peremptory prophecy of God from “ drawing 
invincible necessity after” them, that Saul did not come to Keilah; nei- 
ther did the men of Keilah deliver David into his hands. I flatter 
myself, that if the reader attend to these arguments, he will see that 
Mr. 'T.’s doctrine of an absolute connection between the certain fore- 
knowledge of events, and their invincible necessity, is contradicted by 
experience, reason, and Scripture. 

Twetrre Key. Because no child can help being born, when the 
last pang of his mother forces him into the light ; and because no man 
can possibly live when the last pang of death forces his soul into eternity, 
the necessitarians conclude that our every intermediate action, from our 
birth to our death, is irresistibly brought about by the iron hand of ne- 
cessity. But is not their conclusion as absurd as the following argu- 
ment: “John the Baptist could not speak when he was newly born, nor 
could he do it when the executioner had cut off his head; absolute 
necessity hindered him from forming articulate sounds in the moment 
of his birth, and at the instant of shis death; and therefore ail the days 
of his life absolute necessity made him move his tongue when he spake!” , 
Let us see how Mr. T. handles this wonderful argument. 

Pages 102, 118. “Birth and death are the era and the period, whose 
interval constitutes the thread of man’s visible existence on earth. Let 
us examine whether those important extremes be or be not unalterably 
fixed by the necessitating providence cf God.” And by and by we are 
asked, “if the initial point from whence we start, and the ultimate goal 
which terminates our race, be Divinely and unchangeably fixed ; is it 
reasonable to suppose that any free will, but the free will of Dezty alone, 


398 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


may fabricate the intermediate links of the chain?” That i is, in plaisa 
English, “« Does not God alone fabricate our every action, good or we 
from our cradle to our grave ?” 

Page 107, &c. Mr. T. produces such scriptures as these, to prove 
that the free will of Deity alone fabricates the link of our birth :—# 
[Jacob] said, Am I in God’s stead to give [a barren woman] children? 
They are my sons, whom Gad has given me. Thy hands have made me 
and fashioned me. Thou art he that took me out of the womb. Lo, 
children are a heritage of the Lord. Thou hast covered me, dc, in my 
mother’s womb. In “thy book all my members were writien. God has 
fixed an exact point of time, for the accomplishment of all his decrees: 
among which fixed and exact points of time, are @ time to be born, and 
a time to die.” 

All these passages prove only, (1.) That when a woman is naturally 
barren, like Rachel or Sarah, an extraordinary interposition of God’s 
providence is necessary to render her fruitfuk (2.) That the fruitful- 
ness of woman, as that of our fields, is a gift of God. (3.) That children 
grow in the womb, and come to the birth, according to the peculiar energy 
of those laws, which God, as the God of nature, has made for the pro- 
pagation of animals in general, and of man in particular. And, (4.) 
That as there is a time to be born, namely, in general nine months after 
conception; so there is a time to die, which, in the present state of the 
world, is seventy or eighty years after our nativity, if no peculiar event 
or circumstance hastens or retards our birth and our,death. 

That this is the genuine meaning of the scriptures produced by Mr. 
T., I prove by the following arguments :— 

‘teyGadieould never Calv inistically appoint the birth of ail children, 
without Calvinistically appointing their conception, and every mean con- 
ducive thereto: whence it undeniably follows, that (if Calvinism is true) 
he absolutely appointed, yea, necessitated all the adulteries and whore- 
doms, with all the criminal intrigues and sinful lusts of the flesh, which 
are inseparably connected with the birth of base-born children. Now 
this doctrine makes God the grand author of all those crimes, and repre- 
sents him as the most inconsistent of all lawgivers; since, by his moral 
decrees he forbids, and by his Calvinian decrees he enjois, whoredom 
and adultery, in order to fabricate the link of the birth of every bastard 
child. 

2. The experience of donsiads of virgins shows, that, by keeping 
themselves single, they may prevent the birth of a multitude of children; 
and their parents may do it too, for St. Paul says, “He that otsidsdletle 
steadfast in his heart, having no [moral] necessity, [from his daughter’s 
constitution, or his own low circumstances] but hath power over his 
own will, and hath so decreed in his heart, that he will keep his virgin, 
doth well.” 

3. If women have conceived, by their carelessness or cruelty they 
frequently may so oppose one law of nature to another, as to reverse 
the decree of nature concerning the maturity of the fruit of the womb: 
nor can Mr. T. avoid the force of this conclusion otherwise than by 
saying that God necessitates such cruel mothers to destroy their unborn 
children, to fulfil the absolute decree which condemns their unhappy 
embryos never to come to birth. 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 399 


When Mr. T. has tried to prove that God has Calvinistically ap- 
pointed the birth of all children, he tries to demonstate that the manner, 
moment, and circumstances of every body’s death are so absolutely 
fixed, that no man can possibly live longer or shorter than he does. 
These are some of his arguments :— 

Page 110. “The time drew near that Israel musr die, Gen. xlvii, 
20.” Yes, he must die by necessity of consequence: for he was quite 
worn out; his age, which is mentioned in the preceding verse, being 
one hundred and forty-seven years. We never dream that old decrepit 
men are immortal. Again :— 

Pages 111, 113. “ Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? 
In whose hand i is the soul of every living thing? Man’s days are de- 
termined ; the number of his months is with thee: thou hast appointed 
his bounds, which he cannot pass. All the days of my appointed time 
will I wait till my change come, Job vii, 1; xiv, 5-14. Which of you 
by taking thought can add one cubit to his term of life? Matt. vi, 27.” 
None of these scriptures proves that the free will of Deity alone has 
absolutely fabricated the link of every man’s death. They only indicate, 
(1. ) That God has fixed general bounds to the life of vegetables and 
animals; for as the aloe vegetates a hundred years, so w heat vegetates 
scarce twelve months: and as men in general lived seven or eight 
hundred years before the flood; so now “the days of our life are 
three score years and ten; and if, by reason of strength, they are four 
score years, yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow, so soon 
passeth it away, and we are gone,” Psa. xc, 10. (2.) That as no man 
lived a thousand years before the flood; so no man lives two hundred 
years now. And, (3.) That when we are about to die by necessity of 
consequence, &c, we cannot, without an extraordinary interposition of 
Providence, suspend the effect of this general decree, “ Dust thou art, 
and unto dust shalt thou return.” But to infer from such passages that 
we cannot in general shorten our days by not taking a proper care of our- 
selves, or by running headlong into danger, is acting over again the part 
of the old deceiver, who said, “Cast thyself down, [from the pinnacle 
of the temple,] for it is written,” &c. From such Turkish Sepa aaly 
and murderous conclusions, God deliver weak, unwary readers! 

Two arguments will, I hope, abundantly prove the falsity of this doc- 
trine : the FIRsT is, God does not so fabricate the link of our death, but 
we may, in general, prolong our days by choosing wisdom, and shorten 
them by choosing folly. Is not the truth of this proposition immovably 
founded upon such scriptures as these? “Ifthou seekest her [wisdom] 
as silver, then shalt thou understand every good path : length of days is 
in her hand,” while untimely death is in the hand of fool hardiness, Prov. 
ii, 4,9; mi, 16. “Keep my commandments, for length of days, and 
long life, and peace shall they add unto thee, Prov. ii, 1, 2. Honour 
thy father and mother, that thou mayest live long on the earth, Eph. vi, 
3. If thou wiit walk in my ways, then will I lengthen thy days, 1 Kings 
iii, 14. Their feet run to evil: they lay wait for their own blood, and 
lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is 
greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof, Prov. 
i, 16, &c. A sound heart is [in many cases] the life of the flesh ; but 
envy, the rottenness of the bones,” Prov. xiv, 30. Hence so many per- 


400 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


sons shorten their days by obstinate grief; for “the sorrow of the world 
worketh death.” What numbers of men put an untimely end to their 
lives by intemperance, murder, and robbery, and make good that awful 
saying of David, “ Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their 
days,” Psalm lv, 23. What multitudes verify this doctrine of the wise 
man, “The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the 
wicked shall be shortened,” Proy. x, 27. Does not the psalmist pray, 
“O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days?” Psalm cii, 24. 
Does he not say, “As a snail which melteth, so let the wicked pass 
away like the untimely fruit of a woman?’ And was not this the case 
of the disobedient Israelites in the wilderness, who committed “the sin 
unto bodily death?’ Is not this evident from 1 Cor. x, “ Neither let 
us commit fornication, as some of them also committed, and fell in one 
day three and twenty thousand?” &c. Nay, was not this the case of many 
of the Corinthians themselves? “For this cause [because he that 
receiveth the Lord’s Supper unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment _ 
to himself,] many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep,” 
[i. e. die,] 1 Cor. xi, 30. 

My sEconp argument is taken from reason. If God has absolutely 
appointed the untimely death of all, who shorten their own days, or the 
days of others, by intemperance, filthy diseases, adultery, murder, robbery, 
treason, &c, &c, he has also absolutely appointed all the crimes by which 
their days are shortened ; and has contrived all the wars and massacres, 
by which this earth is become a field of blood. I have heard of some 
Indians who worship a horned grinning idol, with a huge mouth split 
from ear to ear. But the preaching a God, who has plarned and neces- 
sitated all the crimes that ever turned the world into an Aceldama, and 
a common sewer of debauchery, is an honour that the Manichees and the 
orthodox, so called, may claim to themselves. 

Should Mr. T. answer, that although “the free will of the Deity alone 
may fabricate” adultery, murder, and every intermediate link of the chain 
of necessity ; and that although the generation and death of a child con- 
ceived in adultery, and cut off by murder, is “ Divinely and unchangeably 
fixed ;” yet God is not at all the author of the adultery and murder; I 
desire to know how we can cut the Gordian knot, and divide between 
adultery and the generation or conception of a child born in adultery ; and _ 
between the murder of such a child, and its wntimely death caused by the 
cruelty of its unnatural mother. 

From the whole, if I am not mistaken, we may safely conclude, (1.) 
That the birth and death of all mankind take place according to some 
providential laws. (2.) That God, in a peculiar manner, interposes in 
the execution or suspension of these laws, with respect to the birth of 
some men: witness the birth of Isaac, Samuel, John the Baptist, &c. 
(3.) That he does the same with respect to the untimely death of some, 
and the wonderful preservation of others, as appears by the awful 
destruction of Ananias, Sapphira, Herod, and by the miraculous preser- 
vation of Moses in the Nile, of Daniel in the den of lions, of Jonah in 
the whale’s belly, and of Peter in the prison. (4.) That if neither the 
first nor the last link of the chain of human life is, in general, fabricated 
by the absolute will of God, it is unreasonable to suppose that “the free 
will of Deity alone fabricates the intermediate links.” (5.) That tocarry _ 


4 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 401 


the doctrine of providence so far as to make God absolutely appoint the 
birth and death of all mankind, with all their circumstances, is to excul- 
pate adulterers and murderers, and to charge God with being the princi- 
pal contriver, and grand abettor of all the atrocious crimes, and of all the 
_ filthy, bloody circumstances which have accompanied the birth and 
death of countless myriads of men: and therefore, (6.) That the doctrine 
of the absolute necessity of all events, which is commonly called absolute 
predestination, is to be exploded as unscriptural, irrational, immoral, and 
big with the most impious consequences. However, Mr. T. seems ready 
to conclude that the death of every man is absolutely predestinated, 
because the “ fall of a sparrow” is not beneath the notice of our heavenly 
Father: and that he thinks so, appears from his producing the following 
texts in defence of absolute necessity :— 
Pages 81-87. “ Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one 
‘of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father, Matt. x, 29. 
Not one of them, &c, is forgotten before God, Luke xii, 6.” These, and 
the like scriptures, do not prove that God made particular decrees from 
all eternity, concerning the number of times that a sparrow should chirp, 
the number of seeds that it should eat, and the peculiar time and man- 
ner of its death. ‘They prove only that God’s providence extends to 
their preservation ; and that they rise into existence or fall according to 
some law of God’s making, the effect of which he can suspend, whenever 
he pleases. If you shoot a sparrow, it falls indeed according to this 
natural law of our Father, “ that an animal mortally wounded shall fall ;” 
but it by no means follows that you were necessitated thus to wound it. 
_ When the Emperor Domitian spent his time in catching and killing flies, 
_ those insects fell a sacrifice to his childish and cruel sport, according to 
this general decree of Providence, “ In such circumstances. a man shall 
have power to killa feebler animal.” But to suppose that from all eternity 
God made absolute decrees that Domitian should lock himself up in his 
apartment, and kill twenty-three flies on such a day, and forty-six the 
next day—that he should wring off the head of one which was six weeks 
old, and with a pin impale another which was three months, six hours, 
and fifteen minutes old ; or to imagine that before the foundation of the 
world, the Almighty decreed that three idle boys should play the truant 
such an afternoon, in order to seek birds’ nests; that they should find 
a sparrow’s nest with five young ones; that they should torment one to. 
death, that they should let another fly away, that they should starve the 
third, feed the fourth, and give the fifth to a cat, after having put its eyes 
_ out, and plucked so many feathers out of its tender wings; to suppose ~ 
_ this, I say, is to undo all by overdoing. It is absurd to ascribe to God 
the cruelty of Nero, and the childishness of Domitian, for fear he should 
ot have all the glory of St. John’s love, and Solomon’s wisdom. In a 
word, it is to make “the Father of lights” exactly like the prince of 
darkness—the evil principle of the Manichees, who is the first cause of 
all iniquity and wo. Who can sufficiently wonder that any good man 
hould be so dreadfully mistaken as to call such a scheme a Christian 
_ scheme! a doctrine according to godliness ! a Gospel! and the genuine 
Gospel too! And when Mr. T. charges us with Atheism, because we 
cannot bow to the first cause of all evil, does he not betray as much 
_ prejudice as the heathens did, when they called the primitive Christians 
| Vou. TI. 26 


_ 
402 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


Atheists, merely because the disciples of Christ bore their a 
against idol gods ? 

Mr. 'T. produces many passages of Scripture beside~those svhich I 
have animadyerted upon in this section; but as they are equally mis- 
applied, one or another of the twelve keys with which I have presented 
the public, will easily rescue all of them from Calyinian bondage. 


SECTION IV. 


An answer to the capital objections of the necessitarvans against the 
doctrine of liberty. 


Ir I have broken the unphilosophical and unscriptural pillars on which 
Mr. T. builds his temple of philosophical and Christian necessity, I have 
nothing to do now but to answer some plausible objections, by which the 
necessitarians puzzle those who embrace the doctrine of liberty. 

OxsectTion First. And first, they say, that “if God had not secured 
every link of the chain of events, it would fall to pieces; and the events 
which God wants absolutely to bring about, could not he brought about 
at all; while those w hich he designs absolutely to hinder, would take 
place in full opposition to his decrees.” 

Answer. But we deny these consequences: for, 1. Nothing tha 
God determines absolutely to hinder shall ever come to pass. Thus he 
has absolutely decreed that the gates of hell shall never totally prevail 
against or destroy his Church, that is, all true Christians ; and therefore, 
there will always be some true Christians upon earth. It is his absolute 
will that all who “by patient continuance im well doing seek for glory,” 
shall have eternal life ; and that all who finally neglect so great salvation 
shall feel his wrathful indignation ; and therefore none shall pluck the 
former out of the hands of his remunerative mercy, and none shall pluck 
the latter out of the hands of his vindictive justice. 

2. God has ten thousand strings to his providential bow, and ten 

‘thousand bridles in his providential hand, to curb and manage free agents, 
‘which way soever they please to go: and therefore, to suppose that he 
‘has tightly bound all his creatures with cords of absolute necessity, fo 
' fear he should not be able to manage them if they had their liberty; t 
suppose this, I say, is to pour upon Divine Providence the same con 
which a timorous gentleman brings upon himself when he dares not ri 
a spirited horse any longer than a groom leads him by the bridle, 
he may not run away with his unskilful rider. ; 

3. If things had not happened one way, they might have happened 
another way. Supposing, for example, God had absolutely ordered the 
Solomon should be David’s son by Bathsheba; this event might ha) 
taken place without his necessitating David to commit adultery ar 
murder. For Providence might have found out means for ma 
Bathsheba to David before she was married to Uriah: or God n 
have taken Unah to heaven by a fever, and David could legally’ 
married his widow. Again: if neither Caiaphas nor Pilate had con 
demned our Lord, he could have made his life an offering for sin, b 
commanding the clouds to shoot a thousand lightnings upon his devote 


- 
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 403 


nead, and to consume him as Elijah’s sacrifice was consumed on Mount 
Carmel. 
_ 4. The pious author of Ecclesiasticus says, with great truth, that 

_ « God has no need of the sinful man.” To suppose that the chain of 

_ God’s providence would have been absolutely broken if Manasseh or 
Nero had committed one murder less than they did, is to ascribe to the 
old murderer and his servants an importance of which Manes himself 
-might have been ashamed. Although God used Nebuchadnezzar, 
Alexander, and Attila, to scourge guilty nations, and to exercise the 
patience of his righteous servants, he was by no means obliged to use 

them. For he might have obtained the same ends by the plague, the 
famine, or the dreadful ministry of the angel who cut off the first born 
of the Egyptians, and the numerous army of Sennacherib. I flatter 
myself that these four answers fully set aside the first objection of the 
necessitarians : pass we on to another. 

_ Osyection secoxp. “If God had not necessitated the fall of Adam, 
and secured his sin, Adam might have contmued innocent; and then 
there would have been no need of Christ and of Christianity. Had 
Adam stood, we should have been without Christ to all eternity: but 

_ believers had rather be born in sin, than be Christless: they had rather 
be sick, than have nothing to do with their heavenly Physician, and with 

= cordials of his sanctifying Spirit.” * 

Answer. It is absurd to shed that the Father necessitated Adam 

_ f© sin, in order to make way for the indwelling of his Word and Spirit 
in the hearts of believers. For if Adam was made im the image of God; 

_ if God is that mysterious, adorable, Supreme Being, whom the Scriptures 
call Father, Word, and Holy Ghost ; if the Father gave his Word and 
light to Adam in paradise, and shed abroad Divine love in his heart by 
the Holy Ghost given unto him; Adam was full of thé Word and Spinit 
of God by creation. And although the eternal Word was not Adam’s 
Redeemer, yet he was Adam’s life and light; for Christ, considered as 
the Word of God, was the wisdom and power of sinless man, just as he 
b; the wisdom and power of holy believers. The reason why man 
needed not the atoning blood of the Lamb in a state of innocence was 

: Because the holy Lamb of God lived in his heart, and, jointly with the 

‘Spirit of love, maintained there the mystical kingdom of righteousness, 

‘pape joy in the Holy Ghost. To suppose, therefore, that if Adam 

not simmed he would have had nothing to do with the Word and 

Spirit of the Father, is as absurd as to fancy that if people did not poison 

| themselves, they would have had nothing to do with health and cheer- 

| fulness. And to intimate that God necessarily brought about the sin of 

] in order to make way for the murder of his incarnate Son, is as 

mpious as to insinuate that our Lord impelled the Jews to despise the 

of their visitation, in order to secure the opportunity of weeping over 
igh of their hearis. If God necessitated the mischief, in order 
remedy it, the gratitude of the redeemed is partly at an end; and the 
aks they owe him are only of the same kind with such as Mr. Toplady 


* Mr. Toplady dares not produce this objection in all its foree: he only hints 
His own words are, p. 130, “‘ Let me give our free willers a very momentous 
ant: viz. that the entrance of original sin was one of those essential links, on 
ich the Messiah’s incarnation and crucifixion were suspended.” 


* 
404 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 


would owe me, if I wantonly caused him to break his legs, and then 
procured him a good surgeon to set them. But what shall we say of 
the non-redeemed? ‘Those unfortunate creatures whom Mr. Toplady 
calls “ the reprobate?” Are there not countless myriads of these, 
according to his unscriptural gospel? And what thanks do these owe — 
the evil Manichean God, who absolutely necessitates them to sin, and 
absolutely debars them from any saving interest in a Redeemer, that he 
may send them without fail to everlasting burnings? How strangely 
perverted is the rational taste of Mr. T., who calls the doctrine of — 
absolute necessity, which is big with absolute reprobation, absolute 
wickedness, and absolute damnation, a comfortable doctrine! a doctrine 
of grace! May we not expect next to hear him ery up midnight gloom — 
as meridian brightness ? , | 
But to return: if it was necessary that Adam should sin in order to 
glorify the Father, by making way for the crucifixion of the Lamb of — 
God ; is it not also necessary. that believers should sin in order to glorify 
God more abundantly by “crucifying Christ afresh, and putting him 
again to open shame?” Will they not, by this means, have greater 
need of their Physician, make a fuller trial of the virtue of his blood, 
and sing louder in heaven? O, how perilous is a doctrine, which, at 
every turn, transforms itself into a doctrine of light, to support the most 
subtle and pernicious tenet of the Antinomians, “ Let us sin that grace” 
may abound!” , 
Mr. Toplady, who has only hinted at the two preceding objections, 
triumphs much in that which follows: it shall therefore appear clothed 
in his own words. In the contents of his book he says, * Methodists, 
[he gives this name to all who oppose his Scheme of pene) 
Methodists, more gross Manicheans than Manes himself.” ‘The proo 
occurs, page 144, in the followings words :— 
OxssecTIon THIRD. ‘The old Manicheism was a gentle impiety, and 
a slender absurdity, when contrasted with the modern Arminian improve- 
ments on that system. For, which is worse? 'To assert the existence 
of two independent, beings, and no more ; or, to assert the existence of 
about one hundred and fifty millions of independent beings, all living at 
one time, and most of them waging successful war on the designs of 
him that made them? Even confining ourselyes to our own world, if 
will follow that Arminian Manicheism. exceeds the paltry oriental quality, 
at the immense rate of 150,000,000 to two—without reckoning the adult 
self determiners of past generations.” _ 
Answer. This argument, cast into a logical mould, will yield the 
following syllogism :— 
Every being, able to determine himself, is an independent being, ai 
of consequence a god. JE) 
According to the doctrine of free will, every accountable man is a 
being able to determine himself. ai. 
Therefore, according to the doctrine of free will, every accountable 
man is an independent being, and consequently a god. Hence it follows, 
that if Manes erred by believing there were two gods, those who 
espouse the doctrine of free will are more gross Manicheans than Manes 
himself; since they believe that every man is a god, 
Observe Mr. Toplady’s consistency! Indeed, when he attacks Mr. 


> 
PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 405 


W. and Arminianism, no charges (be they ever so contradictory) come 
amiss to him. In his Historic Proof, Arminianism is Atheism; and in 
his Scheme of Necessity, Arminianism is a system which supposes 
countless myriads of gods! But, letting this pass, I observe that the 
preceding syllogism is a mere sophism ; the first proposition, on which 
all the others depend, being absolutely false; witness the following 
appeals to common sense :— 

Is a horse independent on his master, because he can determine him- 
self to range or lie down in his pasture? Is Mr. Toplady independent 
on his bishop, because he can determine himself to preach twice next 
Sunday, or only once, or not at all? Is a captain independent on his 
general, because he can determine himself to stand his ground, or to run 
away in an engagement? Are soldiers independent on,their colonel, 
because they determined themselves to list in such a company? Isa 
negro slave independent on his master, or is he a little god, because, 
when he lies down, he can determine himself to do it on the left side, or 
on the right? Is a highwayman a god, because he can determine himself 


_ to rob a traveller, or to let him pass without molestation? In a word, 


_ are subjects independent on their sovereign, because they can determine 


themselves to break or to keep the laws of the land ? 
Eyery one of the preceding questions pours light upon the absurdity 
of Mr. Toplady’s argument. But that absurdity will appear doubly 


_ glaring if you consider three things: (1.) All free agents have received 


their life and free agency from God, as precious talents, for the good 
or bad use of which they are accountable to his distributive justice. 


‘(2.) All free agents are every moment dependent upon God, for the pre- 


servation of their life and free agency; there being no instant in which 
God may not resume all his temporary talents, by requiring their souls 
of them. (3.) He has appointed a day in which he will judge the 
world in righteousness, by Jesus Christ : then shall he publicly convince 
all moral agents of their dependence on ‘his goodness and justice, by 
graciously rewarding the righteous, and justly punishing the wicked, 
according to their works. (4.) In the meantime, he makes them 
sensible of their dependence, by keeping in his providential hand the 
“ staff of their bread,” and the thread of life; saying to the greatest of 
them, “Ye are gods, [in authority over others,| but ye shall die like 
men: and after death comes judgment.” It is as ridiculous, therefore, 
to suppose that, upon the scheme of free will, men are independent 
beings, as to assert that prisoners, who are going to the bar to meet 
their lawgiver and judge, are independent upon his supreme authority, 
because those who are going to be condemned for robbery or murder, 
determined themselves to rob or murder, without any Antinomian, im- 
pulsiye decree made by their judge ; and because those who are going 
to be rewarded for their obedience, were not necessitated to obey as a 
wave is necessitated to roll along, when it is irresistibly impelled by 
another wave. 

However, Mr. Tonlady sings the song of victory, as if he had proved 
that, upon the Arminian scheme of free will, every man is an inde. 


pendent being, anda god. ‘Poor Manes!” says he, “ with how excel- 


lent a grace do Arminians call thee a heretic! And, above all, such 
Arminians, (whereof Mr. J. Wesley is one,) as agree with thee m 


, 


406 REMARKS ON TOPLADY S 


7 
| 
believing the attainability of sinless perfection here below : or, to use the 
good old Manichean phrase, who assert that the evil principle mye 
totally separated from man in this present life!” 4 
The reader will permit me to make a concluding remark upon this 
triumphant exclamation of Mr. Toplady. I have observed, that Manes 
believed there are in the Godhead two co-eternal principles: (1.) The 
absolute sovereignty of free grace, which necessitates men to good. 
And, (2.) The absolute sovereignty of free wrath, which necessitates — 
them to evil. Nevertheless, Manes was not so mistaken as to suppose 
that the good principle in his Deity was weaker than the bad principle ; 
and that the latter could never be dislodged by the former from the — 
breast of one single elect person. Manes had faith enough to believe 
that now is the day of salvation, and that Christ (and not death or a 
temporary hell) saves good Christians from their sins. Accordingly he 
asserted that nothing unholy or wicked can dwell with the good-prin- 
cipled God; and that none shall inherit eternal life, but such as so concur 
with the heavenly light, as to have the works of darkness destroyed in 
their souls. And therefore he maintained, with St. Paul, that we must 
be “sanctified throughout,” and that our souls must be found at death 
“blameless and without spot or wrinkle” of sin; and he held, with 
St. John, that he who is “fully born of God [the good principle] sinneth 
not, but keepeth himself, and the wicked principle toucheth him not,” 
so as to lead him into iniquity. Now, if Mr. Toplady so firmly believes 
in the evil principle, as to assert, that though believers are ever so will. 
ing to have no other Lord but the good-principled God, yet this God 
can never destroy before death the works of the sin-predestinating God 
in their hearts ; and if, on the other hand, the wicked principle com- 
pletely destroys all good in all reprobates, even in this life; is it not 
evident that Mr. Toplady’s charge may be justly retorted ;* and that, as 
he ascribes so much more power to the evil principle than to the good, 
he carries the sovereignty of the evil principle farther than Manes him- 
self did; and is (to use his own expression) a “more gross Manichean 
than Manes himself?” 
OxsecTion FourTH. “Your scheme of free will labours under a 
greater difficulty than that with which you clog the Scheme of Neces- 


sity; because if it did not represent the sin-necessitating principle as 
. 


* Page 154, Mr. Toplady produces the following objection :—‘’Tis curious to 
behold Arminians themselves forced to. take refuge in the harbour of necessity. 
It is necessary, say they, that man’s will should be free: for without freedom, the 
will were no will at all,” [i. e. no free will—no such will as constitutes a mi: 
a moral and accountable agent.] ‘Free agency, themselves being judges, is on 
a ramification of necessity.” Le 

This is playing upon words, and shuffling logical cards in order to delude the 
simple. Ihave granted again and again that there is a necessity of nature, a 
necessity of consequence, a necessity of duty, a necessity of decency, a necessity 
of convenience, &c, &c, but all these sorts of necessity do no more amount to the 
Calvinian, absolute necessity of all events, than my granting that the king has 
variety of officers about his person by necessity of decency, of office, of custo 
&c, implies my granting that he has a certain officer, who absolutely necessitates 
him to move just as he does, insomuch that he cannot turn his eyes, or stir one 
finger, otherwise than this imaginary officer directs or impels him. This objec- 
tion of Mr. Toplady is so excessively trifling, that I almost blame myself for taking 
notice of it, even in a note. OM 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 407 


more powerful than the good principle, yet it represents created spirits 
as stronger than the God who made them: an impotent, disappointed 
God this, who says,—ZI would, and ye would not.” 

Answer, 1. These words were actually spoken by incarnate Om- 
nipotence: nor do they prove that man is stronger than God, but only 
that when God deals with free agents about those things concerning 
which he will-call them to an account, he does not necessitate their will 
by an irresistible exertion of his power, (propter justum Dei judicium,) 
“that he may leave room for the display of his justice,” as the fathers 
said: for his perfections, and our probationary circumstances require, 
that he should maintain the character of Lawgiver and Judge, as well 
as that of Creator and Sovereign. And, therefore, when we say that 
free agents are not necessarily determined by God to those actions, for 
which God is going to punish or reward them, we do not represent free 
agents as stronger or greater than God. We only place them (sub 
justo Dei judicio) “under God’s righteous government,” as said the 
fathers, equally subjected to the legislative wisdom, and executive power 
of their omnipotent Lawgiver. 

2. Whether free agents are rewarded or punished, saved or damned, 
God our Saviour will never be disappointed : for, (1.) He will pronounce 
the sentence; and what he will do himself will not disappoint his 
expectation. (2.) It is as much God’s righteous, eternal design to 
punish wicked, obstinate free agents, as to reward yielding and obedient 
free agents. (3.) Every Gospel dispensation yields a savour of life or 
death, The sword of the Lord is a two-edged sword: if it do not cut 
down a man’s sin, it will cut down his person. And though God, as 
Creator and Redeemer, does not in the day of salvation Calvinistically 
desire the death of a sinner; yet, as a holy Lawgiver, a covenant-keeping 
God, and a righteous Judge, he is determined to “render unto every 
man according to his deeds: eternal life to them who, by patient con- 
tinuance in well doing, seek for glory; but indignation and wrath to 
them who do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness :” and 
God will do this, “in the day when he shall judge the secrets of men 
according to the Gospel,” Rom. ii, 6-16. Hence it is evident that the 
bow of Divine justice has two strings, that each string will shoot its 
peculiar arrow, and although. God leaves it to free agents to choose 
which they will have, the arrow which is winged with remunerative life, 
or that which carries vindictive death; yet he can never be disappointed : 
he will most infallibly hit the judicial mark which he has set up : witness 
the awful declaration which is engraven upon that mark :—“'These 
[obstinate free agents] shall go away into everlasting punishment ; but 
the righteous unto life eternal,” Matt. xxv, 46. 

Upon the whole, I humbly hope, that whether candid readers con- 
sider the inconclusiyeness of Mr. T.’s philosophical arguments, the 
injudicious manner in which he has pressed the Scriptures into the 
service of absolute necessity, or the weakness of his objections, which 
he directly or indirectly makes against the doctrine of liberty ; they will 
see that his scheme is as contrary to true philosophy and to well-applied 
Scripture, as the absolute necessity of adultery and murder is contrary 
to good morals, and the absolute reprobation of some of our unborn chil- 
dren, and perhaps of our own souls, is contrary to evangelical comfort. 


408 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S 
. 


“a 
SECTION V. : ie 
The doctrine of*necessity is the capital error of the Calvinists, and ‘the 
foundation of the most wretched schemes of philosophy and divinity— 
How nearly Mr. Toplady agrees with Mr. Hobbes, the apostle of the 


materialists in England, with respect to the doctrine of necessity— 
Conclusion. 


We have seen on what philosophical and Scriptural proofs Mr. — 
Toplady founds the doctrine of necessity ; and, if I am not mistaken, 
the inconclusiveness of his arguments has been fairly pointed out. I 
shall now subjoin some remarks, which I hope are not unworthy of the © 
reader’s attention. 

1. It is not without reason that Mr. T. borrows from false philosophy — 
and misapplied passages of Scripture, whatever seems to countenance — 
his doctrine of necessity ; for that doctrine is the very soul of Calvinism ; 
and Calvinism is, in his account, the marrow of the Gospel. If the 
doctrine of absolute necessity be true, Calvinian election and reprobation 
are true also: if it be false, Calvinism, so far as we oppose it, is left 
without either prop or foundation. Take away necessity from the 
modern doctrines of grace, and you reduce them to the Seripture 
standard which we follow, and of which Arminius was too much 
afraid. 

2. Those who would see at once the bar which separates us from 
the Calvinists, need only consider the following questions :—Are all 
those who shall be damned absolutely necessitated to continue in sin and 
perish? And are all those who shall be saved absolutely necessitated to 
work righteousness and be eternally saved? Or, to unite both questions” 
in one, Shall men be judged, that is, shall they be justified or condemned - 
in the last day, as bound agents, according to the unavoidable conse- 
quences of Christ’s work, or of Adam’s work? Or, shall they be 
justified or condemned, according to THEIR OwN works, as the Scripture 
declares? I lay a peculiar stress upon the words their own, because 
works, which absolute decrees necessitate us to do, are no longer, 
properly speaking, our own works, but the works of Him who necessi- — 
.tates us to do them. ; 

3. There is but one case in which we can Scripturally admit the 
Calvinian doctrine of necessity, and that is, the salvation of infants who 
die before they have committed actual sin. These, we grant, are 
necessarily or Calvinistically saved. But they will not be “ judged 
according to THEIR works,” seeing they died before they wrought either 
iniquity or righteousness. Their salvation will depend only on the 
irresistible work of Christ, and his Spirit. As they were never called 
personally to “work out their own salvation ;” and as they never per-- 
sonally wrought out their own damnation, they will all be saved by the — 
superabounding grace of God, through the meritorious infaney and death 
of the holy child Jesus. But it is an abomination to suppose that — 
because God can justly force holiness and salvation upon some infants, — 
he can justly force continued sin and eternal damnation upon myriads — 
of people, by putting them in such circumstances as absolutely necessitate 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 409 


them to continue in sin and be damned.” J repeat, God may bestow 
eternal favours upon persons whom his decrees necessitate .tu be 
righteous. But he can never inflict eternal punishments upon persons 
whom his decrees, according to Mr. Toplady’s doctrine, necessitate to 
be wicked from first to last. 

4. The moderate Calvinists say, indeed, that Adam was endued with 
free will, and that God did not necessztate him to sin. _ But if necessity 
has nothing to do with the first man’s obedience and first transgres- 
sion, why should it be supposed that it has so much to do with us, as 
absolutely to beget all our good and bad works? And if it be not 
unreasonable to say “that God endued one man with a power to deter- 
mine himself ;” why should we be considered as enemies to the Gospel, 
because we assert that he has made all men in some degree capable 
of determining themselves ; the Scriptures declaring that he treats all 
adult persons as free agents, or persons endued with the power of self 
determination ? * 

5. Mr. Toplady and all the rigid Calvinists suppose, indeed, that 
God’s necessitation extended to the commission of Adam’s sin ; and yet 
they tell us that God is not the author, but only the permitter of sin. 
But they do not consider that their doctrine of absolute necessity leaves 
no more room for permission, than the absolute decree that a pound 
shall alizazs exactly weigh sixteen ounces, leaves room for a permission 
of its weighing sometimes fifteen ounces and sometimes seventeen. 
Should Mr. Toplady reply that “such a decree, however, leaves room 
for the permission that a pound shall always exactly weigh sixteen 
ounces,” I reply, that this is playmg upon words, it being evident that 
the word permission, in such a case, is artfully put for the plainer word 
necessity or absolute decree. It is evident, therefore, that although 
Mr. Toplady aims at being more consistent than the moderate Calvinists, 
he is in fact as inconsistent as they, if he denies that, upon the scheme 
of the absolute decrees preached by Calvin, and of the absolute neces- 
sity which he himself maintains, God is properly the contriver and author 
of all sin and wickedness. 

6. It is dreadful to lay, directly or indirectly, all sin at the door of an 
omnipotent Being, who is “ fearful in holiness, and glorious in praises.” 
Nor is it less dangerous to make poor, deluded Christians swallow down, 
as Gospel, some of the most dangerous errors that were ever propagated 
by ancient or modern infidels. " We have already seen that the capital 
error of Manes was the doctrine of necessity. This doctrine was also 
the grand engine with which Spinosa in Holland, and Hobbes in Eng- 
land, attempted to overthrow Christianity in the last century. Those 
‘two men, who may be called the apostles of modern materialists and 
Atheists, tried to destroy the Lord’s vineyard, by letting loose upon it 
the very error which Mr. T. recommends to us as the capital doctrine 
of grace, “Spinosa,” says a modern author, “ will allow no governor 
of the universe but necessity.” As for Mr. Hobbes, he built his mate- 
rialism upon the ruins of free will, and the foundation of necessity : hear 
the above-quoted author giving us an account of the monstrous system 
of religion known by Hobbism :—* Freedom of will it*was impossible 
that Mr. Hobbes should assert to be a property of matter; but he finds 
a very unexpected way to extricate himself out of the difficulty. The 


410 REMARKS ON TOPLADY’S " 


proposition against him stands thus: ‘Freedom of will cannot. 
property of matter; but there are beings which have freedom of 
therefore there are substances which are not material.’ He answe 
this at once by saying the most strange thing, and the most contradictor 
to our knowledge of what passes within ourselves, that perhaps 
ever advanced, namely, that there is no freedom of will. ‘ Every effect,’ 
he says, [and this is exactly the doctrine of Mr. Toplady, as the quota. 
tions I have produced from his book abundantly prove, ‘* Eyery effect 
must be owing to some cause, and that cause must produce the effect 
necessarily. Thus, whatever body is moved, is moyed by some other 
body, and that by a third, and so on without end.’ In the same manner 
he [Mr. Hobbes] concludes, ‘The will of a voluntary agent must be 
determined by some other external to it, and so on without end: there. — 
fore, that the will is not determined by any power of determining itself, 
inherent in itself; that is, it is not free, nor is there any such thing as 
freedom of will, but that all is the act of necessity.’” This is part of 
the account which the author of the Answer to Lord Bolingbroke’s 
Philosophy gives us of Mr. Hobbes’ detestable scheme of necessity: 
and it behooves Mr. Toplady and the Calvinists to see if, while they — 
contend for their absolute decrees, and for the doctrine of the absolute 
necessity and passiveness of all our willings and motions, they do not 
inadvertently confound matter and spirit, and make way for Hobbes’ — 
materialism, as well as for his scheme of necessity, , 
7. The moment the doctrine of necessity is overthrown, Manicheism, 
Spinosism, Hobbism, and the spreading religion of Mr. Voltaire, are 
left without foundation ; as well as that part of Calvin’s system which 
we object against. And we beseech Mr. Toplady, and the contenders 
for Calvinian de@rees, to consider, that if we oppose their doctrine, it is 
not from any prejudice against their persons, much less against God’s 
free grace ; but from the same motive which would make us bear our 
testimony against Manes, Spinosa, Hobbes, and Voltaire, if they would 
impose their errors upon us as “ doctrines of grace.” Mr. Wesley and 
I are ready to testify upon oath that we humbly submit to God’s soyve- 
reignty, and joyfully glory in the freeness of Gospel grace, which has 
mercifully distinguished us from countless myriads of our fellow crea- 
tures, by gratuitously bestowing upon us numberless fayours, of a spiritual 
and temporal nature, which he has thought proper absolutely to withhold 
from our fellow creatures. To meet the Calvinists on their own ground, 
we go so far as to allow there is a partial, gratuitous election and repro- 
bation. By this election, Christians are admitted to the enjoyment of 
privileges far superior to those of the Jews: and, according to this 
reprobation, myriads of heathens are absolutely cut off from all the 
prerogatives which accompany God’s covenants of peculiar grace. In 
a word, we grant to the Calvinists every thing they contend for, except 
the doctrine of absolute necessity: nay, we even grant the necessary, 
unavoidable salvation of all that die in their infancy. And our love to 
peace would make us go farther to meet Mr. Toplady, if we could do it 
without giving up the justice, mercy, truth, and wisdom of God, together 
with the truth of the Scriptures, the equity of God’s paradisiacal and medi- 
atorial laws, the propriety of the day of judgment, and the reasonableness 
of the sentences of absolution and condemnation which the righteous 


+ 


i 


PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY. 411 


Judge will then pronounce. We hope, thérefore, that the prejudices of 
our Calvinian brethren will subside, and that, instead of accounting us 
inveterate enemies to truth, they will do us the justice to say that we 
have done our best to hinder them from inadvertently betraying some 
“of the greatest truths of Christianity into the hands of the Manichees, 
materialists, infidels, and Antinomians of the age. May the Lord hasten 
the happy day in which we shall no more waste our time in attacking 
or defending the truths of our holy religion; but bestow every moment 
in the sweetest exercises of Divine and brotherly love! In the mean- 
time, if we must contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, let 
us do it with a plainness that may effectually detect error; and with a 


_ mildness that may soften our most violent opponents. Lest I should 


transgress against this rule, | beg leave once more to observe, that 
though I have made it appear that Mr. Toplady’s Scheme of Necessity 
is inseparably connected with the most horrid errors of Manicheism, 
materialism, and Hobbism, yet I am far from accusing him of wilfully 
countenancing any of those errors. I am persuaded he does it unde- 
signedly. ‘The badness of his cause obliges him to collect, from all 
quarters, every shadow of argument to support his favourite *opinion. 
And I make no doubt but, when he shall candidly review our contro- 
versy, it will be his grief to find that, in his hurry, he has contended for 

a scheme which gives up Christianity into the hands of her greatest 
enemies, and has poured floods of undeserved contempt upon Mr. Wes- 
ley who is one of her best defenders. 


AN ANSWER 


TO THE 
REV. MR. TOPLADY’S 


“VINDICATION OF THE DECREES,” &c. 


BY THE AUTHOR OF THE CHECKS. 


. 

“The [absoluie] predestination of some to LIFE, &c, cannot be maintained without admitting 
the [absolute] reprobation of some others to DEATH, &c; and all who have subscribed the 
said article [the seventeenth, in a Calvinian sense] are bound in honour, conscience, and 
law to defend [Calvinian, absolute] reprobation, were it only to keep the seventeenth 
article [taken in a Calvinian sense] upon its legs.” (Rev. Mr. TopLapy’s Historic 
Proof of Calvinism, p. 574.) 


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INTRODUCTION. 


Wauen the author of Pietas Oxoniensis took his temporary leave of 
me in his Finishing Stroke, he recommended tothe public the book 
which I am going to answer. His recommendation runs thus :-—“ Who- 
soever will consult the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s last publication, entitled, 
More Work for Mr. J. Wesley, [or, A Vindication of the Decrees, &c,] 
will there find a full answer to all those cavils which Papists, Socinians, 
Pelagians, Arminians, and Perfectionists bring against those doctrines 
commonly called Catviutst, as if they tended to promote licentiousness, 
or to make God cruel, unjust, and unmerciful, and will see every one of 
their objections retorted upon themselves in a most masterly manner.” 
(Finishing Stroke, p. 33.) Soon after Mr. Hill had thus extolled Mr. 
Toplady’s: performance, I was informed that many of the Calvinists 
said that it was an unanswerable defence of their doctrines. This 
raised in me a desire to judge for myself; and when I had sent for, and 
read this admired book, I was so far from being of Mr. Hill’s senti- 
ment, that I promised my readers to demonstrate, from that very book, 
the inconclusiveness of the strongest arguments by which Calyinism is 
supported. Mr. Hill, by unexpectedly entering the lists again, caused 
me to delay the fulfillmg of my promise. But having now completed 
my answer to his fictitious creed, I hasten to complete also my Logica 
Genevensis. 

» Did I write a book entitled Charitas Genevensis, I might easily show, 
from Mr. Toplady’s performance, that the “doctrines of grace” (so 
called) are closely connected with “the doctrines of free wrath.” But 
if that gentleman, in his controversial heat, has forgotten what he owed 
to Mr. Wesley and to himself, this is no reason why I should forget the 
title of my book, which calls me to point out the bad arguments of our 
opponents, and not their ill humour. If I absurdly spent my time in 
passing a censure“upon Mr. Toplady’s spirit, he would with reason say, 
as he does in the introduction to his Historic Proof, page 35, “ After 
all, what has my pride or my humility to do with the argument in hand ? 
Whether I am haughty or meek is of no more consequence either to 
that or to the public, than whether I am tall or short.” Beside, having 


_ again-and again, myself, requested our opponents not to withdraw the 


controversy by personal reflections, but to weigh with candour the argu- 
ments which are offered, I should be inexcusabie if I did not set them 


\ 


416 INTRODUCTION. ~* 


the example. Should it be said that Mr. Wesley’s character, wl 
Mr. Toplady has so severely attacked, is at stake, and that I ought 

' posely to stand up in his defence, I reply, that the personal charge 
which Mr. Toplady interweaves with his arguments, have been already 
fully answered* by Mr. Olivers; and that these charges being chiefly 
founded upon Mr. Toplady’s logical mistakes, they will, of their own — 
accord, fall to the ground, as soon as the mistakes on which they rest 
shall be exposed. If Logica Genevensis is disarmed, Charitas Gene- 
_ vensis will not be able to keep the field. If good sense take the former 
prisoner, the latter will be obliged to surrender to good nature. Should 
this be the case, how great a blessing will our controversy prove to 
both parties! The conquerors shall have the glory of vindicating truth ; 
and the conquered shall have the profit of retiring from the fieid with 
their judgments better informed, and their tempers better regulated! 
May the God of truth and love grant, that if Mr. Toplady have the 
honour of producing the best arguments, I (for one) may have the 
advantage of yielding to them! To be conquered by truth and love, is to 
prove conqueror over our two greatest enemies, error and sin. 

Mapetey, Oct. 1775. 


* See ‘A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Toplady,” by Mr. Olivers. 


* 


AN ANSWER 


TO THE 


REY. MR. TOPLADY’S “VINDICATION OF THE DECREES,” &c. 


SECTION I. 


Showing that, upon the Calvinian scheme, it is an indubiiable truth that 
some men shall be saved, do what they will, till the efficacious decree 
of Calvinian election necessitate them to repent and be saved: and 
‘that others shall be damned, do what they can, till the efficacious 
decree of Calvinian reprobation necessitate them to draw back, and 
be damned. 


Tue doctrinal part of the controversy between Mr. Wesley and Mr 
Toplady may, in a great degree, be reduced to this question :—If God, 
from all eternity, absolutely predestinated a fixed number of men, called 
the elect, to eternal life, and absolutely predestmated a fixed number of 
men, called:the reprobate, to eternal death, does it not unavoidably follow 
that “the elect shall be saved, do what they will ;” and that “the repro- 
bate shall be damned, do what they can?” Mr. Wesley thinks that the 


* consequence is undeniably true: Mr. Toplady says that it is absolutely 


false, and charges Mr. Wesley with “coining blasphemous proposi- 
tions,” yea, with “hatching blasphemy, and then fathering it on others,” 
pages 7, 8; and, in a note upon the word blasphemous, he says, “This 
epithet is not too strong.” To say that any shall be saved, do what they 
will, and others damned, do what they can, is, in the first instance, blas- 
phemy against the holiness of God; and, in the second, blasphemy 
against his goodness: and again, p. 34, after repeating the latter clause 
of the consequence, viz. “the reprobate shall be damned, do what they 
can,” he expresses himself thus :—“ One would imagine that none but a 
reprobate could be capable of advancing a position so execrably shocking. 
Surely it must have cost even Mr. Wesley much, both of time and pains, 
to invent the idea, &c. Few men’s invention ever sunk deeper into 
the despicable, launched wider into the horrid, and went farther in the 
profane. The Satanic guilt of the person who could excogitate, and 
publish to the world a position like that, baffles all power of description, 
and is only to be exceeded (if exceedable) by the Satanic shamelessness 
which dares to lay the black position at the door of othermen. Let us 
examine whether any thing occurring in Zanchius could justly furnish 
this wretched defamer with materials for a deduction so truly infernal.” 
Agreeably to those spirited complaints, Mr. Toplady calls his book, not 
only * More Work for Mr. J. Wesley,” but also “‘ A Vindication of the 
Decrees and Providence of God, from the defamations of a late printed 
paper, entitled, ‘The Consequence Proved.’” I side with Mr. Wesley 
for the consequence ; guarding it against cavils by a clause, which his. 
love of brevity made him.-think needless. And the guarded consequence, 
Vou. Hi. 27 


418 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


which I undertake to defend, runs thus :—From the doctrine of the abso. 
lute and unconditional predestination of some men to eternal life, and of 
all others to eternal death, it necessarily follows, that some men shall be 
sAvED, do what they will, till the absolute and efficacious decree of elec- 
tion actually necessitate them to obey, and be saved; and that all the 
rest of mankind shall be pamnep, do what they can, till the absolute 
and efficacious decree of reprobation necessitate them to sin, and be 
damned. . 
An illustration will at once show the justness of this consequence to | 
an unprejudiced reader. Fifty fishes sport in a muddy pond, where 
they have received life. The skilful and almighty Owner of the pond 
has absolutely decreed that ten of these fishes, properly marked with a 
shining mark, called election, shall absolutely be caught in a certain net, | | 
called a Clospel net, on a certain day, called the day of his power; and 
that they shall, every one, be cast into a delightful river, where he has | 
engaged himself, by an eternal covenant of particular redemption, to 
bring them without fail. The same omnipotent Proprietor of the 
has likewise absolutely decreed that all the rest of the fishes, namely, 
forty, which are properly distinguished by a black mark, called repro. 
bation, shall never be caught in the Gespel net; or that if they are 
entangled in it at any time, they shall always be drawn out of it, and so” 
shall necessarily continue in the muddy pond, till, on a certain day, called 
the day of his wrath, he shall sweep the pond with a certain net, called a 
law net, catch them all, and cast them into a lake of fire and brimstone, 
where he has engaged himself, by an everlasting covenant of non-redemp- 
lion, to. bring them all without fail, that they may answer the end of their 
predestination to death, which is to show the goodness of his law net, and 
to destroy them for having been bred in the muddy pond, and for not hay- 
ing been caught in theyGospel net. "The Owner of the pond is wise, as 
well as powerful. He knows that, absolutely to secure the end to which 
his fishes are absolutely predestinated, he must absolutely secure the 
means which conduced to that end ; and therefore, that none may escape 
their happy or their unfortunate predestination, he keeps night and day 
his hold of them all, by a strong hook, called necessity, and by an invisible 
line, called Divine decrees. By means of this line and hook it happens, 
that if the fishes, which bear the mark election, are ever so loath to come 
into the Gospel net, or to stay therein, they are always drawn into it ina 
day of powerful iach and if the fishes which bear the mark of repro. 
bation, are, for a tine, ever so desirous to wrap themselves in the Gas- 
pel net, they are always drawn out of it in a day of powerful wrath. 
For, though the fishes seem to swim ever so freely, yet their motions” 
‘are all absolutely fixed by the Owner of the pond, and determined by 
means of the above-mentioned line and hook. If this is the case, says 
Mr. Wesley, ten fishes shall go into the delightful river, let them do 
what they will, let them plunge in the mud of their pond ever so briskly, 
or leap toward the lake of fire ever so often, while they have any liberty ~ 
to plunge or to leap. And all the rest of the fishes, forty in number, — 
shall go into the lake of fire, let them do what they can, let them in-— 
volve themselves ever so long in the Gospel net, and leap ever so often 
toward the fine river, before they are absolutely necessitated to go, 
through the mud of their own pond, into the, sulphureous pool. The 


, 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 419 


consequence is undeniable, and I make no doubt that all unprejudiced 
persons see it as well as myself: as sure as two and two make four, or, 
if you please, as sure as ten and forty make fifty, so sure ten fishes 
shall be finally caught in the Gospel net, and forty in the law net. 

Should Mr. Toplady say that this is only an illustration, I drop it, 
and roundly assert that if two men, suppose Solomon and Absalom, are 
absolutely predestinated to eternal life; while two other men, suppose 
Mr. Baxter and Mr. Wesley, are absolutely predestinated to eternal 
death ; the two elect shall be saved, do what they will, and the two 
reprobates shall be damned, do what they can. ‘That is, let Solomon 
and Absalom worship the abomination of the Zidonians, and of the 
Moabites, m ever so public a manner; let them, for years, indulge 
themselves with heathenish women, collected from all countries; if 
they have a mind, let them murder their brothers, defile their sisters, 
and imitate the incestuous Corinthian, who took his own father’s wife ; 
yet they can never really endanger their finished salvation. The indeli- 
ble mark of unconditional election to life is upon them; and forcible, 
victorious grace shall, in their last moments, if not before, draw them 
irresistibly and infallibly from iniquity to repentance. Death shall una- 
yoidably make an end of their indwelling sin ; and to heaven they shall 
unavoidably go. On the other hand, let a Baxter and a Wesley astonish 
the world by their ministerial labours: let them write, speak, and live 
in such a manner as to stem the torrent of iniquity, and turn thousands 
to righteousness: with St. Paul let them take up their.cross daily, and 
preach and pray, not only with tears, but “with the demonstration of 
the Spirit ‘and with power:” Jet unwearied patience and matchless 
diligence carry them with increasing fortitude through all the persecu- 
tions, danger, and trials, which they meet with from the men of the 
world, and from false brethren: let them hold on this wonderful way to 
their dying day ; yet, if the indelible mark of unconditional reprobation 
to death is upon them, necessitating, victorious wrath shall, in their last 
moments, if not before, make them necessarily turn from righteousness, 
and unavoidably draw back to perdition ; so shall they be fitted for the 
lake of fire, the end to which, if God Calvinistically passed them by, 
they were absolutely ordained through the prcdestenace medium of 
remediless sin and final apostasy. 

This is the true state of the case: to spend time in proving it would 
be offering the judicious reader as great an insult, as if I detained him 
to proye that the north is opposed to the south. But what does Mr. 
Toplady say against this consequence, “If Calvinism is true, the repro- 
bates shall be damned, do what they can?” He advances the following 
warm argument ;— 

Areument I. Page 55. “Can Mr. Wesley produce a single instance 
of any one man, who did all he could to be saved, and yet was lost? 
If he can, let him tell us who that man was, where he lived, when he 
died, what he did, and how it came to pass he laboured in vain. If he 
cannot, let him either retract his consequences, or continue to be posted 
for a shameless traducer.” 

I answer: 1. To require Mr. Wesley to show a man who did all he 
could, and yet was lost, is requiring him to prove that Calvinian repro- 
bation is ¢rue.- a thing this, which he can no more do, than he can 


oe — 


420 ANSWER TO TOPLADY S$ 


prove that God is false. Mr. Wesley never said that any man was 
damned after doing his best to be saved: he only says that 2f Calvinism 
as true, the reprobates shall all be damned, though they should all do 
their best to be saved, till the efficacious decree of their absolute repro 
bation necessitates them to draw back and be damned. 

2. As Mr. Toplady’s bold request may impose upon his inattentive 
readers, I beg leave to point out its absurdity by a short illustration. 
Mr. Wesley says, If there is a mountain of gold, it is heavier than a 
handful of feathers; and his consequence passes for true in England. 
But a gentleman who teaches logic in mystic Geneva thinks that it is 
absolutely false, and that Mr. Wesley’s “ forehead must be petrified, and 
quite impervious to a blush,” for advancing it. Can Mr. Wesley, says 
he, show us a mountain of gold, which is really heavier than a handful 
of feathers? If he can, let him tell us what mountain it is, where it 
lies, in what latitude, how high it is, and who did ever ascend to the top 


of it. If he cannot, let him either retract his consequences, or continue 


© be posted for a shameless traducer. 

Equally conclusive is Mr. Toplady’s challenge! By such cogent 
arguments as these, thousands of professors are bound to the chariot 
wheels of modern orthodoxy, and blindly follow the warm men, who 
“drive as furiously” over a part of the body of Seripture divinity, as 
the son of Nimshi did over the body of cursed Jezebel. 


SECTION II. s 


Calvinism upon its legs, or a full view of the arguments by which Mr. 
Toplady attempts to reconcile Calvinism with God’s holiness ;—a note 
upon a letter to an Afminian teacher. 


SensrB_e that Calvinism can never rank among the doctrines of holi- 
ness, if “the elect shall be saved, do what they will,” and if the “ repro- 
bate shall be damned, do what they can ;” Mr. Toplady tries to throw 
off, from his doctrines of grace, the deadly weight of Mr. Wesley’s con- 
sequence. In order to this, he proves that Calvinism insures the holi- 
ness of the elect, as the necessary means of their predestinated salvation : 
but he is too judicious to tel] us that it insures also the wickedness of the 
reprobate as the necessary means of their predestinated damnation. ‘To 
make us in love with his orthodoxy, he presents her to our view with 


one leg, on which she contrives to stand, by artfully leanimg upon her 
faithful maid, Logica Genevensis. Her other leg is prudently kept out ~ 


of sight, so long as the trial about her holiness lasts. This deseryes 
explanation. 

The most distinguishing and fundamental doctrines of Calvinism are 
two; and therefore they may with propriety be called the legs of that 
doctrinal system. The First of these fundamental doctrines is, the per- 
sonal, unconditional, absolute. predestination, or election, of some men to 


eternal life; and the seconp is, the personal, unconditional, absolute — 
predestination, or reprobation, of some men to eternal death. Nor can © 


Mr. Toplady find fault with my making his doctrine of grace stand upon 
her legs, Calvinian election and Calvinian reprobation: for, supposing 


ee aaa 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 421 


that our Church speaks in her seventeenth article of Calvinian, absolute 
predestination to eternal life, he says himself, in his Historic Proof, 
page 574, “The predestination of some to life, asserted in the seven- 
teenth article, cannot be maintained without admitting the reprobation* 


* Our opponents are greatly embarrassed about the doctrine of absolute, un- 
conditional reprobation. ‘Though in a happy moment, where candour prevailed 
over shame, Mr. Toplady stood up so boldly for Calvinian reprobation ; the reader, 
as he goes on, will smile when he sees the variegated wisdom with which that 
gentleman disguises, exculpates, or conceals, whut he so rationally and so can- 
didly grants here. 

The truth is, that as Scriptural election is necessarily attended with an answer- 
able reprobation ; so absolute, Calvinian election unavoidably drags after it abso- 
lute, Calvinian reprobation: a black reprobation this, which necessitates all who 
are personally written in the book of death to sin on, and to be damned. But 
some Calvinists are afraid to see this doctrine, and well they may, for it is horri 
ble: others are ashamed to acknowledge it; and not a few, for want of rational 
sight, obstinately deny that it is the main pillar of their Gospel; and with the 
right leg of their system they unmercifully kick the left. Among the persons 
who are guily of this absurd conduct, we may rank the author of A Letter to ar 
Arminian Teacher : an imperfect copy of which appeared in the Gospel Magazine 
of August, 1775, under the following title: A Predestinarian’s real thoughts of 
Election and Reprobation, gc. This writer is so inconsistent as to attempt cut 
ting off the left leg of Calvinism. He, at first, gives us reprobation. ‘‘ The word 
reprobation,” says he, ‘‘is never mentioned in all the Scripture, [no more is the 
word predestination, nor is the Scriptural word reprobate ever mentioned as the 
continuance of election, or as [its] opposite.’ This is a great mistake, as appears 
from the two first passages quoted by this author, Jer. vi, 30, and Rom. i, 28, 
where reprobate silver is evidently opposed to choice silver, and where a reprobate 
mind is indubitably opposed to the mind which is after God’s own heart—that is, 
to the mind which God approves and chooses to crown with evangelical praises 
and rewards. Our author goes on :— 

““There is no immediate connection between election to salvation, and repro- 
bation to damnation.” What an argument is this! Did we ever say that there is 
any immediate connection between two things which are as contrary as Christ 
and Belial? O! but we mean that ‘‘they have no necessary dependence on each 
other.” The question is not whether they have a necessary dependence on each 
other; but whether they have not a necessary opposition to each other; and that 
they have, is as clear as that light is opposed to darkness. ‘‘ They proceed from 
very different causes.” True: for election proceeded from free grace, and Cal- 
Vinian reprobation from free wrath. ‘The sole cause of election is God’s free 
love, &c. The sole cause of damnation is only sin.” Our author wants candour 
or attention. Had he argued like a candid logician, he would have said, ‘‘ The 
sole cause of the reprobation which ends in unavoidable damnation, is only sin :” 
but if he had fairly argued thus, he would have given up Calvinism, which stands 
or falls with absolute reprobation ; and therefore he thought proper to substitute 
the word damnation for the word reprobation, which the argument absolutely 
requires. These tricks may pass in Geneva; but in England they appear incon- 
sistent with fair reasoning. It is a common stratagem of the Calvinists to say, 


“Election depends upon God’s love only, but damnation depends upon our sin 


only ;” break the thin shell of this sophism, and you will find this bitter kernel : 
God’s distinguishing love elects some to unavoidable holiness and finished salva- 
tion; and his distinguishing wrath reprobates all the rest of mankind to remedi- 
less sin and eternal damnation. For the moment the sin of reprobates is neces- 
sary, remediless, and insured by the decree of the means, it follows that absolute 
reprobation to necessary, remediless sin, is the same thing as absolute reprobation 
to eternal damnation ; because such a damnation is the unavoidable consequence 
of remediless sin. 

Wher the letter writer has absurdly denied Calvinian reprobation, he insinuates, 
p- 5, that everlasting torments and being unavoidably damned, are not the neces- 
sary consequences of the decree of Calvinian election; ‘‘ nor,” says he, “can they 
be fairly deduced from the decree of reprobation” So now the secret is out! 


422 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


of some others to death, &c, and all who have subscribed to the said 
article are bound in honour, conscience, and law to defend reprobation, © 
were it only to keep the seventeenth article [or rather, the Calvinian 
sense which Mr. 'Toplady fixes to that article] wpon its legs,” “A 

Agreeably to Mr. Toplady’s charge, Calvinism shall stand upon its 
legs. He takes care to show the right leg, in order to vindicate God’s 
holiness upon the Calvinian plan; and I shall set forth the left leg, in 
order to show that the honour of God’s holiness is as incompatible with 
Calvinism, as light with darkness. Mr. Toplady’s arguments are pro- — 
duced under No. 1, with the number of the page in his book where he 
advances them. In the opposite column, under No. 2, the reader will 
find my answer, which is nothing but Mr. Toplady’s own arguments, 
retorted in such a manner as to defend the second Gospel axiom, which 
Calvinism entirely overthrows. No. 1 displays the unguarded manner in 
which Mr. Toplady defends the first Gospel axiom. To form No. 2, I 
only make his arguments stand upon the other leg; and by this simple 
method, I show the lameness of Calvinism, and the infamy which she — 
pours upon God’s holiness and goodness, under fair shows of regard for — 
these adorable attributes. 


The right leg of Calvinism, or the The left leg of Calvinism, or the | 
| 
4 


Calvinian doctrine of election and Calvinian doctrine of reproba- 
necessary holiness. tion and necessary wickedness. 


Arcument II. No.1. Page 17. | Answer. No. 2. I affirm, with 
“JT affirm, with Scripture, that they Calvinism, that the reprobates can- 
[the elect] cannot be saved without not be damned without wickedness 


Our author, after denying reprobation, informs us that there is a Calvinian decree of 
reprobation. But if there be such a decree, why did he oppose it, p. 2? And if there 
is no such a decree, why does he mention it, p. 5; where he hints that insured : 
damnation cannot be fairly deduced from it? Now, if he, or any Calvinist in the 
world, can prove that, upon the Calvinian plan, among the thousands of Calvin’s 
reprobates, who are yet in their mothers’ wombs, one of them can, any how, avoid 
finished damnation, I solemnly engage myself before the public, to get my Checks 
burnt, at Charing Cross, by the common hangman, on any day which Mr. Hill, 
Mr. Toplady, and Mr. M’Gowan will please to appoint. But if the Calvinists 
cannot do this, and if the Calvinian decree of reprobation insures the necessary, 
remediless sin, and the unavoidable, finished damnation of one and all the repro. 
bates of Calvin, born or unborn; Mr. M’Gowan, and Dr. Gill, whom he quotes, 
insult common sense, when they intimate that insured damnation cannot be ~ 
fairly deduced from the decree of reprobation. How much less candid are the ~ 
letter writer and Dr. Gill, than Mr. Toplady and Zanchius, who fairly tell us, p. 
75, ‘“*The condemnation (that is, the damnation) of the reprobate is necessary 
and irresistible !” 

The letter writer tells us, p. 6, ‘‘ What insures holiness, must insure glory; 
election (that is, Calvinian election) doth so, and glory must follow.” This is 
the right leg of Calvinism; let her stand upon the left leg, and you have this 
doctrine of grace: what insures remediless sin, must insure damnation ; Calvinian 
reprobation doth so, and damnation must follow. I would as soon bow to Dagon, 
as to this doctrine of remediless sin and insured wickedness. Ye controversial 
writers of the Gospel Magazine, if you will confirm Arminian teachers in their 
attachment to the holy election and righteous reprobation preached by St. Paul, 
and in their detestation for the Antinomian election and barbarous reprobation, 
which support your doctrinal peculiarities, only vindicate your election as incon- 
sistently as Mr. M’Gowan, and your reprobation as openly as Mr. Toplady. (See 
two other notes on the same performance; the one under the Arg. xxxviii, and 
the other under the Arg. lxvii.) i 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 423 


, RIGHT LEG. 
sanctification and obedience. Yet 
is not their salvation precarious ; 
for that very decree of election, by 
which they were nominated and 
ordained to eternal life, ordained 
their termediate renewal after the 
image of God, in righteousness and 
true holiness. Nay, that renewal 
is itself the dawn and beginning of 
actual salvation.” 

Are. II]. No. 1. Page 17. “ The 
elect cold no more be saved with- 
out personal holiness, than they 
could be saved without personal 
existence. And why? Because 
God’s own decree secures the 
Means as well as the end, and 
accomplishes the end by the means. 
The same gratuitous predestination 
which ordained the existence of the 
elect as men, ordained their purifi- 
cation as saints; and they were 
ordained to both, in order to their 
being finally and completely saved 
in Christ with eternal glory.” 


LEFT LEG. 
and disobedience. Yet is not their 
damnation precarious ; for that very 
decree of reprobation, by which they 
were nominated and ordained toeter- 
nal death,ordained their intermediate 
conformity to the image of the devil 
in sin and true wickedness. Nay, 
that conformity is itself the dawn 
and beginning of actual damnation. 


Answer. No. 2. The repro- 
bates could no more be damned 
without personal wickedness, than 
they could be damned without per- 
sonal existence. And why? Be- 
cause God’s own decree secures 
the means as well as the end, and 
accomplishes the end by the means. 
The same gratuitous predestination 
which ordained the existence of the 
reprobate as men, ordained their 
pollution as sinners ; and they were 
ordained to both, in order to their 
being finally and completely damned 
in Adam with eternal shame. 


Before I produce the next argument, I think it # proper to observe 


that “the election of grace,” which St. Paul defends, is not, as Calym 
supposes, an absolute election to eternal life, through necessitated holi- 
ness: an election this, which, in the very nature of things, drags after it 
an absolute reprobation to eternal death, through remediless sin. But 
the -apestle means a gratuitous election to the privileges of the best 
covenant of peculiarity,—a most gracious covenant this, which is known 
under the name of “ Christianity, the Gospel of Christ,” or simply “ the 
Gospel,” by way of eminence. For as, by a partial election of distin- 
guishing favour, the Jews were once chosen to be God’s peculiar people, 
(at which time the Gentiles were reprobated, with respect to Jewish 
privileges, being left under the inferior Gospel dispensation of reprieved 
Adam and spared Noah,) so, when the Jews provoked God to reject 
them from being his peculiar people, he elected the Gentiles, to whom 
he sent “the Gospel of Christ: he elected them, I say, and called 
them to believe this precious Gospel, and “ to be holy im all manner of 
conversation, as becomes Christians.” But far from absolutely electing 
those Gentiles to eternal salvation through unavoidable holiness, Calvin- 
istically imposed upon them, he charged them by his messengers to 
make “ the:r Christian calling and election sure, lest they also should 
be cut off,” as the Jews had been, for not “ making their Jewish calling 
and election sure.” In short, “ the election of grace” mentioned in the 
Scriptures, is a gratuitous election to run the Christian race with Paul 
Peter, and James; rather than the Jewish race with Moses, David, and 
Daniel; or the race of Geniilism with Adam, Enoch, and Noah. It is 


a 


424 


ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


A 
° 
+ 


hi 


a gracious election, which implies no merciless, absolute reprobation of 
the rest of mankind. And the Calvinists are greatly mistaken when 
they confound this election with our judicial election to receive the 
crown of life, a rewarding crown this, the receiving of which depends, 
(1.) On the grace of God in Christ ; and, (2.) On the voluntary obedience 
of faith ; and will be judicially bestowed ‘according to the impartiality of 


justice; and not according to the partiality of grace. 


This will be 


demonstrated in an Essay on the Election of Grace and the Election of 
Justice, where the reader will see the true meaning of the passages — 
which Mr. Toplady has so plausibly pressed into the service of the — . 


following arguments :— 
RIGHT LEG. 

Are. IV. No. 1. Page 18. “God 
the Father hath chosen us in Christ, 
before the foundation of the world, 
that we should [not ‘be saved, do 
what we will ;’ but] ‘be holy and 
without blame before him in love,’ 
Eph. i, 4. Election is always fol- 
lowed by regeneration, and regene- 
ration is the source of all good 
works.” 

Are. V. No.1. Page 18. “We 
[the elect] are his subsequent work- 
manship, created anew in Christ 
Jesus unto good works, which God 
hath foreordained, that we should 
walk in them. Consequently, it 
does not follow from the doctrine 
of absolute predestination that the 
‘elect shall be saved, do what they 
will.” On the contrary, they are 
chosen as much to holiness as to 
heaven; and are foreordained to 
walk in good works, by virtue of 
their election from eternity, and of 
their conversion in time.” 

Are. VI. No.1. Pages 18,19. 
“Yet again, God hath from the 
beginning, [that is, from everlasting, 
&c,] ‘chosen you to salvation, 
through sanctification of the Spirit, 
and belief of the truth,’ 2 Thess. 
ii, 13. All, therefore, who are cho- 
sen to salvation, are no less unalter- 
ably destined to holiness and faith 
in the meanwhile. And if so, it is 
giving God himself the lie to say 
that ‘ the elect shall be saved, do 
what they will.’ For the elect, like 
the blessed person who redeemed 


LEFT LEG. 

Answer. No. 2. God the Fa. } 
ther hath reprobated us in Adam, — 
before the foundation of the world, — 
that we should [not be “damned, ; 
do what we will ;” but] be unholy — 
and full of blame before him in 
malice. Reprobation is always fol- — 
lowed by apostasy ; and apostasy is — 
the source of all bad works. 


Answer. No. 2. We [the re- 
probates] are his subsequent work- 
manship, created anew in Adam 
unto bad works, which -God hath 
foreordained, that we should walk : 
in them. Consequently, it does not — 

; 


follow from the doctrine of absolute — 
predestination that “ the reprobates 
shall be damned, do what they will.” 
On the contrary, they are reprobated 
as much to wickedness as to hell ; 
and are foreordained to walk in bad — 
works, by virtue of their reprobation — 
from eternity, and of their perversion : 
in time. . 
Answer. No, 2. Yet again, — 
God hath from the beginning, [that — 
is, from everlasting, |reprobated you — 
to damnation, through pollution of 
the Spirit, and disbelief of the truth. — 
All, therefore, who are reprobated — 
to damnation, are no less unalter- 
ably destined to wickedness and un- — 
belief in the meanwhile. And ifso, — 
it is giving God himself the lie to 
say that “the reprobate shall be 
damned, do what they will.” For 
the reprobate, like the blessed per- 
son who rejected them, come into 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 


RIGHT LEG. 
them, come into the world not to do 
their own will, but the will of Him 
that sent them: and this is the will 
of God concerning them, even their 
sanctification. Hence they are ex- 
pressly said to be elect unto obe- 
dience. Not indeed chosen because 
of obedience, but chosen unto it: 
for works are not the foundation of 
grace, but streams flowing from it. 
Election does not depend upon holi- 
ness, but holiness depends upon elec- 
tion. 
tination from being subversive of 
good works, that predestination is 
the primary cause of all the good 
works which have been and shell 
be wrought from the beginning to 
the end of time.” 


So far, therefore, is predes.. 


425 


LEFT LEG. 
the world not to do their own will, 
but the will of Him that sent them: 
and this is the will of God concern- 
ing them, even their wickedness. 
Hence they are expressly said to 
be reprobated unto disobedience. 
Not indeed reprobated because of 
disobedience, but reprobated unto 
it: for works are not the foundation 
of wrath, but streams flowing fromit. 


‘ Reprobation does not depend upon 


wickedness, but wickedness depends 
upon reprobation. So far, therefore, 
is predestination from being subver- 
sive of bad works, that predestina- 
tion to death is the primary cause 
of all the bad works which have 
been and shall be wrought from the 
beginning to the end of time. 


Dreadfully crooked as the left leg of Mr. Toplady’s system is, it per- 
fectly agrees with the right leg; that is, with his crooked election, and 
his bandy predestination. He may deny it as absolutely as prisoners 
at the bar deny what is laid to their charge: but their denial goes for 
nothing: the witnesses are called in, and I produce two, who are 
capital, and to whom I suppose Mr. Toplady will hardly object. The 
first is Zanchius, and the second is his ingenious translator, who says m 
his translation, page 50, “ He [man] fell in consequence of the Divine 
decree.” (Observ. p. 7.) “Whatever comes to pass, comes to pass 
by virlue of this absolute, omnipotent will of God. Whatever things 
come to pass, come to pass necessarily.” (Ibid.) “ Whatever man 
does, he does necessarily,” page 15. “All things turn out according 
to Divine predestination ; not only the works we do outwardly, but even 
the thoughts we think inwardly,” page 7. “The will of God is the 
primary and supreme cause of all things,” page 11. “The sole cause 
why some are saved and others perish, proceeds from his willing the 
salvation of the former, and the perdition of the latter,” page 15. “We 
can only do what God from eternity willed and foreknew we should,” 
page 7. “No free will of the creature can resist the will of God,” 
page 19. “The purpose or decree of God signifies his everlasting 
appointment of some men to life, and of others to death : which appoint- 
ment flows entirely from his own free and sovereign will,” page 57. 
“If between the elect and the reprobate there was not a great gulf fixed, 
so that neither can be otherwise than they are, then the will of God 
(which is the alone cause why some are chosen and others not) would 
be rendered of no effect,” page 56. “Nor would his word be true with 
regard to the non-elect, if it was possible for them to be saved,” page 15. 
“The condemnation of the reprobate is necessary and irresistible,” 
page 25. “God worketh all things in all men, even wickedness in the 
wicked.” 

- On these propositions, the most unguarded words of which I have 


’ 


426 


“‘ 


ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


produced in Ifalics, I rest the left leg of Calvinism, and taking my leave 


of the translation of Zanchius, I return to the Vindication of the 
Decrees ; and continue to make Mr. Toplady’s doctrine of grace stand 


“on its legs,” that is, on absolute reprobation to death, as well as on 


absolute election to life. 


, 


RIGHT LEG. 


Arc. VII. No. 1. Page 19. 
“Reason also joins with Scripture 
in asserting the indispensable ne- 
cessity of SANCTIFICATION, upon the 
footing of the most absolute and 
irrespective election: or, in other 
words, that the certainty of the end 
does not supersede, but insure the 
intervention of the means.” 

Are. VIII. No. 1. Pages 21, 22. 
“Tt was necessary that, as sinners, 
they [the elect] should not-only be 
redeemed from punishment, and 
entitled to heaven, but endued more- 
over with an internal meetness for 
that inheritance. This internal 
meetness for heaven can only be 
wrought by the restoring agency 
of God the Holy Ghost, who gra- 
ciously engaged and took upon him- 
self, in the covenant of peace, to 
renew and sanctify all the elect peo- 
ple of God ; saying, ‘I will put my 
law in their minds. Elect, &c, 
through sanctification of the Spirit 
unto obedience.’ Election, though 
productive of good works, is not 
founded upon them: on the con- 
trary, they are one of the glorious 
ends to which they are chosen. 
Saints do not bear the roof, but the 
root them. Elect unto obedience. 
They who have been elected, &c, 
shall experience the Holy Spirit’s 
sanctification, in beginning, ad- 
vancing, and perfecting the work 
of grace in their souls. The elect, 
&c, are made to obey the command. 
ments of God, and to imitate Christ, 
Gc. I said, made to obey. Here 
perhaps the unblushing Mr. Wesley 
may ask, ‘ Are the elect then mere 
machines?’ J answer, No: they 


* 
LEFT LEG. 


Answer. No. 2. Reason also 
joins with Scripture in asserting 
the indispensable necessity of wick- 
EDNEss, upon the footing of the 
most, absolute and irrespective re- 
probation: or, in other words, that 
the certainty of the end does not 
supersede, but ansure the interyen- 
tion of the means. 

Answer. No. 2. It was neces- 
sary that, as holy, they [the repro- 
bate] should not only be appointed 
fo punishment, and entitled to hell, 
but endued moreover with an in- 
ternal meetness for that inheritance, 
This internal meetness for hell, can 
only be wrought by the perverting 
agency of [the Manichean] god the 
unholy ghost, who officiously en- 
gaged and took upon himself, in the 
covenant of wrath, to pervert and 
defile all the reprobate people of 
God; saying, “I will put my law 
in their minds. Reprobate, &c, 
through pollution of the spirit unto 
disobedience.” Reprobation, though 
productive of bad works, is not 
founded upon them: on the con- 
trary, they are one of the inglori- 
ous ends to which they are repro. 
bated. Sinners do not bear the 
root, but the root them. Reprobate 
unto disobedience. ‘They who haye 
been reprobated, &c, shall experi- 
ence the wicked spirit’s pollution, 
in beginning, advancing, and per- 
fecting the work of sim in their 
souls. The reprobates, &c, are 
made to disobey the commandments 
of God, and to imitate Satan, &c. 
I said, made to disobey. Here per- 
haps the blushing Mr. Wesley may 
ask, “ Are the reprobates then mere 


f 


——— 


Ee eee 


——=——_ 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 


RIGHT LEG. 
are made willing in the day of 
God’s power.”* 


Ane. IX. No. 1. Pages 23, 24. 
“God decreed to bring his elect to 
glory, in a way of sanctification, 
and in no other way but that. If so, 
cries Mr. Wesley, ‘they shall be 
saved, whether they are sanctified 
or no. What, notwithstanding 
their sanctification is itself an es- 
sential branch of the decree con- 
cerning them? ‘The man may as 
well affirm that Abraham might 
have been the progenitor of nations, 
though he had died in infancy, &c. 
Equally illogical is Mr. Wesley’s 
impudent slander, that ‘the elect 
shall be saved, do what they will,’ 
that is, whether they be holy or 


Are. X. No. 1. Page 20. “ Paul’s 
travelling, and Paul’s utterance, 
were as certainly and as neces- 
sarily included in the decree of the 
means as his preaching was deter- 
mined by the decree of the end.” 


Arc. XI. No. 1. Pages 28, 29. 
« Love, when [Calvinistically] pre- 
dicated of God, signifies his eternal 
benevolence ; that is, his everlasting 
will, purpose, and determination, to 
deliver, bless, and save his [elect] 
people. In order to the eventual 
accomplishment of that salvation in 
the next world, grace is given them 
in this, to preserve them (and pre- 
serve them it does) from doing the 
evil they otherwise would. ‘This 
is all the election which Calvinism, 
&c, contends for ; even a predesti- 
nation to holiness and heaven.” 


Are. XII. No. 1. 


Page 33. ~ 


427 


LEFT LEG. 
machines?” I answer, No: they 
are made willing in the day of 
God’s power. 

Answer. No. 2. God decreed 
to bring his reprobate to hell in a 
way of sinning, and in no other 
way but that. If so, cries Mr. 
Wesley, “they shall be damned, 
whether they sin or no.” What, 
notwithstanding their sinning is it- 
self an essential branch of the de- 
cree concerning them? “The man 
may as well affirm that Paul might 
have preached the Gospel, viva 
voce, in fifty different regions, with- 
out travelling a step!” page 23. 
Equally illogical is Mr. Wesley’s 
impudent slander, that “the repro- 
bate shall be damned, do what they 
will,” that is, whether they be 
wicked or not. 

Answer. No. 2. The rich glut- 
ton’s gluttony, and his wnmerciful- 
ness, were as certainly and as ne- 
cessarily included in the decree of 
the means as his being tormented in 
hell was determined by the decree 
of the end. 

Answer. No. 2. Hate, when 
Calvinistically predicated of God, 
signifies his eternal 2/ will ; that fs, 
his everlasting will, purpose, and 
determination, to enthral, curse, and 
damn his [reprobated] people. In 
order to the eventual accomplish- 
ment of that damnation in the next 
world, wickedness is given them in 
this, to preserve them (and pre- 
serve them it does) from doing the 
good they otherwise would. This 
igs all the reprobation which Cal 
vinism contends for; even a pre 
destination to wickedness and hell. 

Answer. No. 2. Now, if it bethe 


* Here Mr. Toplady adds, And, I believe, nobody ever yet heard of a willing 


machine. 


But he is mistaken: for all moral philosophers call machine whatever 


is fitted for free motions, and yet has no power to begin and determine its own 


motions. 


Now willing being the motion of a spirit, ifa spirit cannot will but as 


it is necessarily made to will, it is as void of a self-determining principle as a fire 
engine, and of consequence it is (morally speaking) asa mere machine. 


428 


RIGHT LEG. 
‘¢ Now, if it be the Father’s will that 
Christ should lose none of his elect ; 
if Christ himself, in consequence of 
their covenant donation to him, does 
actually give unto them eternal life, 
and svlemnly avers that they shall 
never perish; if God be so for 
them that none can hinder their 
salvation, &c; if they cannot be 
condemned, and naught shall sepa- 
rate them from the love of Christ ; 
it clearly and inevitably follows, 
that not one of the elect can perish ; 
but they must all necessarily be 
saved. Which salvation consists 
as much in the recovery of moral 


ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


LEFT LEG. s 
Father’s will that Satan should lose 
none of his reprobate; if Satan 
himself, in consequence of their 
covenant donation to him, does ac- 
tually give unto them eternal death, 
and solemnly avers that they shall 
never escape ; if God be so against — 
them that none can hinder their 
damnation, &c ; if they cannot’ be 
justified, and naught shall separate 
them from the hate of Christ; it 
clearly and inevitably follows, that 
not one of the reprobate can escape ; 
but they must all necessarily be 
damned. Which damnation con-— 
sists as much in the being stripped 


rectitude below, as in the enjoyment of moral rectitude on earth, as in the 
of eternal blessedness above.” enduring <f eternal torments in hell. 

By such wrested texts, and delusive arguments as these, it is, that Mr. 
Toplady has vindicated God’s holiness upon Calyinian principles. Now 
as he requests that Calvinism may stand “ upon its legs,” that is, upon 
absolute election and absolute reprobation ; I appeal to all the unpreju- 
diced world, have I not made the Diana of the Calvinists stand straight ? 
Have I not suffered her to rest upon her left leg, as well as upon the 
right? If that leg terminates in a horribly cloven foot, is it Mr. Wes- 
ley’s fault, or mine? Have we formed the doctrinal image, which is set 
up in mystical Geneva? Is the quotation produced in my motto forged? ~ 
Is not absolute reprobation one of “the doctrines of grace” (so called) as 
well as absolute election? May I not show the full face of Calvinism, 
as well as her side face? Ifa man pay me a guinea, have I not a right 
to suspect that it is false, and to turn it, if he that wants to pass it will 
never let me see the reverse of it in a clear light? Can Mr. Toplady 
blame me for holding forth Calvinian reprobation? Can he find fault 
with me for showing what he says I am “ not only bound to show, but 
to defend?” If Calvinism be “the doctrine of grace,” which I must 
engage sinners to espouse, why should I serve her as the soldiers did 
the thieves on the cross? Why, at least, should I break one of her 
legs? If ever I bring her into the pulpit, she shall come up on both — 
“her legs.” The chariot of my Diana shall be drawn by the biting 
serpent, as well as by the silly dove ; I will preach Calvinian. reproba- 
tion, as well as Calvinian election. I will be a man of “ conscience 
and honour.” 4 

And now, reader, may I not address thy conscience and reason, and 
ask, If all the fallen angels had laid their heads together a thousand — 
years to contrive an artful way of “ reproaching the living God—the 
Holy One of Israel,” could they have done it more effectually than by — 
getting myriads of Protestants (even all the Calvinists) and myriads of 
Papists (even all the Dominicans, Jansenists, &c,) to pass the false 
coin of absolute election and absolute reprobation, with this deceitful, 
alluring inscription: “Necessary holiness unto the Lord,” and this 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 429 


detestable Manichean motto on the reverse: “Necessary wickedness 
unto the Lord?’ And has not Mr. Toplady presumed too, much upon 
thy credulity, in supposing that thou wouldst never have wisdom enough 
to look at the black reverse of the shining medal by which he wants 
to bribe thee into Calvinism ? 


SECTION III. 


An, answer to some appeals to Scripture and reason, by which Mr. Top- 
lady attempts io support the absoluteness and holiness of the Calvinian 
decrees. 


Ler us see if Mr. Toplady is happier in the choice of his Scriptural 
and rational illustrations, than in that of his arguments. ‘To show that 
God’s decrees respecting man’s life and salvation are absolute, or (which 
is all one) to show that the decree of the end necessarily includes the 
decree of the means, he appeals to the case of Hezekiah, thus :— 

Are. XIII. Page 20. “God resolved that Hezekiah should live 
fifteen years longer than Hezekiah expected, &c. It was as much | 


‘comprised in God’s decree that Hezekiah should eat, drink, and sleep, 


during those fifteen years, and that he should not jump into the sea, &c, 
as that fifteen years should be added to his life.” From this quotation 
it is evident that Mr. Toplady would have us believe that none of God’s 
decrees are conditional; that when God decrees the end, he does it 
always in such a manner as to insure the means necessary in order to 
bring about the end ; and that Hezekiah is applied to as a proof of this 
doctrine. Unfortunate appeal! If I had wanted to prove just the con- 
trary, | do not know where I should have found an example more 
demonstrative of Mr. Toplady’s mistake. Witness the following 
account: “Hezekiah was sick unto death, and Isaiah came to him and 
said, Thus saith [thus decrees] the Lord, Set thy house in order; for 
thou shalt die, and not live,” Isaiah xxxviii, 1. Here is an explicit, 
peremptory decree ; a decree where no condition is expressed ; a decree 
which wears a negative aspect, “'Thou shalt not live,” and a positive 
form, “Thou shalt die.” The means of executing the decree was 
already upon Hezekiah: he was “sick unto death.” And yet, so far 
was he from thinking that the decree of the end absolutely included that 
of the means, that he set himself upon praying for life and health ; yea, 
upon doing it as a Jewish perfectionist. “Then Hezekiah turned his 
face toward the wall, and prayed, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech 
thee, how I have walked before thee with a perfect heart, &c ; and Heze- 
kiah wept sore. ‘Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, 
Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith [thus decreeth] the Lord, I have 
heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears ; behold, I will add unto thy days 
fifteen years,” verses 2,5. From this account it is evident that Heze- 
kiah might as easily have reversed the decree about his tire, by stabbing 
or drowning himself, as he reversed the decree about his praru, by 
weeping and praying ; and that Mr. Toplady has forgotten himself as 
much in producing the case of Hezekiah in support of Calvinism, as if 
he had appealed to our Lord’s sermon on the mount in defence of the 


dawless gospel of the day. 


/ 


430 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S | 


A kind of infatuation attends the wisest men whvu openly fight the 
battles of error. In the end, their swords, like that of the champion. 
the Philistines, do their cause more mischief than service. Mr. Toplady 
will perhaps afford us another instance of it. After producing He 
kiah to establish the absoluteness of God’s decrees, he calls in the first 
Jewish hero; Joshua is brought to demonstrate that the decree of the 
end always binds upon us an unavoidable submission to the decree of the 
means ; or, to speak more intelligibly, that God’s decrees to bless or to” 
curse, are always absolute, and necessitate us to use the means leading — 
to his blessing or his curse. e oe" 

Arc. XIV. Page 23. “Prior to the taking’ of Jericho, ft was 
revealed to Joshua that he should certainly be master of the place. 
Nay, so peremptory was the decree, and so express the revelation of it, 
that it was predicted as if it had already takén effect: ‘I have given — 
into thy hand Jericho,’ &c. » This assurance, than which nothing could 
be more absolute, did not tie up Joshua’s hands from action, and make 
him sit down without using the means, which were no less appointed 
than the end. On the contrary,” &c. Here we are given to under- 
stand that Joshua and the Israelites could never cross any of God’s 
gracious decrees by neglecting the means of their accomplishment ; 
because they were necessitated to use those means, Thus is Joshua 
pressed into the service of Calvinian necessity, and the absoluteness of 
God’s decrees ; Joshua, who, of all men in the world, is most unlikely 
to support the tottering ark of Calvinian necessity. For when he saw 
in the wilderness the carcasses of several hundred thousand persons, to 
whom God had promised the good land of Canaan with an oath, and 
who nevertheless “entered not in because of unbelief,” he saw several — 
hundred thousand proofs that God’s promises are not absolute, and that — 
when he deals with rewardable and punishable agents, the decree of the ~ 
end is not unconditional, and does by no means include an irresistible 
decree which binds upon them the unavoidable use of the means. 

But, consider the peculiar case of Joshua himself: « The Lord spake 
unto Joshua, saying, There shall not any man be able to stand before — 
thee all the days of thy life: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee,” ~ 
Josh. i, 5. Now this peremptory decree of the end, far from necessa- ~ 
rily including the means, actually failed by a single flaw in the use of — 
the means. The disobedience of Achan reversed the decree; for he 
disregarded the means or condition which God had appointed ; “’Turn — 
not to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whither. 
soever thou goest,” Josh. i, 7. Hence it is, that when Achan had ~ 
“turned to the left,” the decree failed, and we find Joshua “ prostrate 
before the ark a whole day with his clothes rent, and dust upon his 
head,” lamenting the flight of Israel before Az, and wishing that “he — 
had been content, and had dwelt on the other side Jordan.” Nor do I 
see, in God’s answer to him, the least hint of Mr. Toplady’s doctrine. — 
“ Why lie&t thou upon thy face? Israel hath sinned, and they have 
also transgressed my covenant: for they have even taken of the ac- 
cursed thing. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before — 
their enemies, because they were accursed : neither will I be with you 
any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing,” Josh. vii, 1, 13. 

Hence-it appears that when Mr. Toplady appeals to Joshua in de- 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 431 


fence of the absoluteness of God’s decrees, he displays his skill in the 
art of logic, as much as if he appealed to the peremptoriness of the 
famous decree, “ Yet forty days, and [ungodly] Nineveh shall be de- 
stroyed:” and yet penitent Nineveh was spared. So unscriptural is 
the assertion, that the decree of the end insures the use of the means, 
when God tries moral agents in the day of salvation, in order to punish 
or reward them according to their works in the day of judgment! 

Mr. Toplady supports these unfortunate appeals to Scripture, by the 
following appeal to reason :— 

“Arc. XV. Page 24. “Suppose it were infallibly revealed to an 
army, or to any single individual, that the former should certainly gain 
such a battle, and the latter certainly win such a race, would not the 
army be mad to say, Then we will not fight a stroke? Would not the 
racer be insane to add, Nor will I move so much as one of my feet, &c? 
Equally illogical is Mr. Wesley’s impudent slander, that the elect shall 
be saved, do what they will, Gc. Either he is absolutely unacquainted 
with the first principles of reasoning, or he offers up the knowledge he 
has, as a whole burnt sacrifice on the altar of malice, calumny, and 
falsehood.” 

This severe censure will appear Calvinistically gratuitous, if we con- 
sider that it is entirely founded upon the impropriety of the illustrations 
produced by Mr. Toplady. If he had exactly represented the case, he 
would have said, “Suppose it were infallibly revealed to an army that 
they should certainly gain such a battle; that they could do nothing 
toward the victory by their own fighting; that the battle was fought, 
and absolutely won for them seventeen hundred years ago ; that if they 
refused to fight to-day, or if they ran away, or were taken prisoners, 
their triumph would not be less certain; and that putting their bottle to 
their neighbours’ mouths, and defiling their wives, instead of fighting, 
would only make them sing vicrory louder, on a certain day called a 
day of power, when Omnipotence would sovereignly exert itself’ in their 
behalf, and put all their enemies to flight: suppose again it were re- 
vealed to a racer that he should certainly win such a race, and receive 
the prize, whether he ran to-day backward or forward; because his 
winning the race did not at all depend upon Azs own swift running, but 
upon the swiftness of a great racer, who yesterday ran the race for him, 
and who absolutely imputes to him his swift running, even while he geis 
out of the course to chase an ewe lamb, or visit a Delilah; that the 
covenant, which secures him the prize, is unconditionally ordered in all 
things and sure; that though he may be unwilling to rum now, yet in a 
day of irresistible power he shall be made willing to fly and receive 
the prize ; and that his former loitering will only set off the greatness 
of the power which is absolutely engaged to carry him, and all elect 
racers, quite from Egypt to Canaan in one hour, if they have loitered 
till the eleventh hour ;” suppose, I say, Mr. Toplady had given us such 
a just view of the case, who could charge the soldiers with “* madness,” 
and the racer with “being insane,” if they agreed to say, “ We will 
neither fight nor run, but take our ease, and indulge ourselves, till the 
day of power come, in which we shall irresistibly be made to gain the 
battle, and to win the race 1” 

From these rectified illustrations it appears, if I am not mistaken, (1.) 


432 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


That, when Mr. Wesley advanced his consequence, he neither “ showed 
himself absolutely unacquainted with the first principles of reasoning,” 


nor “ offered up the knowledge he has, as a whole burnt sacrifice on the 


altar of malice, calumny, and falsehood.” And, (2.) That, when Mr, 


Toplady’s appeals to Scripture and reason are made fairly to stand 


“upon their legs,” they do his doctrine as little service as his limping 
arguments. 


SECTION IV. 


An answer to the arguments by which Mr. Toplady endeavours to recon- 
scile Calvinian reprobation with Divine yusticx. 


We have seen how unhappily the translator of Zanchius has recon- 
ciled his doctrines of grace and absolute election with God’s holiness : 


let us now see if he has been more successful in reconciling his doe: 


trines of wrath and absolute reprobation with Divine justice. 

Arc. XVI. Page 35. “Justice consists in rendering to every man 
his due.” Mr. Toplady gives us this narrow definition of justice to 
make way for this argument: God owes us no blessing, and therefore 
he may gratuitously give us an everlasting curse. He does not owe us 
heaven, and therefore he may justly appoint that eternal sin and damna- 
tion shall be our unavoidable portion. But is not a king unjust when 
he punishes an unavoidable fault with uninterrupted torture, as well as 
when he refuses to pay his just debts ? . 

Are. XVII. (Ibid.) “God is not a debtor to any man.” True, 


(strictly speaking ;) but, (1.) Does not God owe to himself, to behave — 


like himself, that is, like a gracious and just Creator toward every man? 
(2.) When God, by his promise, has engaged himself judicially to render 
to every man “according to his works,” is it just in him to necessitate 
some men to work righteousness, and others to work iniquity, that he 
may reward the former, and punish the latter, according to arbitrary 
decrees of absolute election to life, and of absolute reprobation to death ? 
And, (3.) Do not the sacred writers observe, that God has conde- 
scended to make himself a debtor to his creatures by his gracious 
promises? Did Mr. Toplady never read, “ He that hath pity upon the 
poor lendeth to the Lord, and,” look, “ what he layeth out it shall be 
paid again?” Proy. xix, 17. When evangelical Paul hath “ fought a 
good fight,” does he not look for a crown from the “just Judge,” and 
declare that “God is not unrighteous to forget our labour of love ;” and, 
“if we confess our sins,” is not God bound by his justice, as well as by 
his faithfulness, “to forgive, and cleanse us?” 1 John i, 9. 

Arc. XVII. (Ibid.) «If it can be proved that he [God] owes salva- 
tion to every rational being he has made, then, and then only will it 
follow that God is unjust in not paying this debt of salvation to each, 
&c. What shadow of injustice can be fastened on his conduct for, in 


some cases, withholding what he does not owe?” This argument is_ 
introduced by Mr. Toplady in a variety of dresses. The flaw of it — 


consists in supposing that there can be no medium between eternal sal- 
vation, and appointing to eternal damnation ; and that, because God may 
absolutely elect as many of his creatures as he pleases to a crown of 


| 


o 


ur 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 433 


gory, he may absolutely reprobate as many as Calvinism pleases to 
eternal sin and everlasting burnings. The absurdity of this conclusion 
will be discovered by the reader, if he look at it through the glass of 
the following illustrations :—Mr. Toplady is not obliged, by any rule of 
justice, to give Mr. Wesley a hundred pounds, because he owes him no 
money ; and therefore Mr. T. may give Mr. Wesley a hundred gra- 
tuitous stripes, without breaking any rule of justice. The king may, 
without injustice, gratuitously give a thousand pounds to one man, ten 
thousand to another, a hundred to a third, and nothing to a fourth ; and 
therefore the king may also, without injustice, gratuitously give a hun- 
dred stabs to one man, a thousand to another, and ten thousand to a 
third; or, he may necessitate them to offend, that he may hang and 
burn them with a show of justice. 

Arc. XIX. Page 36. “I defy any man to show in what single 
respect the actual limitation of happiness itself is a jot more just and 
equitable (in a Being possessed of infinite power) than the decretive 
limitation of the persons who shall enjoy that happiness.” The question 
is not whether God can justly limitate the happiness of man; or the 
number of the men, whom he will raise to such and such heights of 
happiness. ‘This we never disputed; on the contrary, we assert with 
our Lord, that when God gives degrees of happiness, as a benefactor he 
may ‘do what he pleases with his own;” he may give five talents to 
one man, or to five thousand men ; and two talents to two men, or to éwo 
millions of men. Wherein then does the iallacy of Mr. Toplady’s argu- 
ment consist? In this most irrational and unjust conclusion : God may, 
without injustice, ‘limit the happiness” of his human creatures, and the 
number of those who shall enjoy such and such a degree of happiness ; 
and therefore he may also,. without injustice, absolutely reprobate as 
many of his unborn creatures as he pleases, and decree to protract their 
infernal torments to all eternity, after having first decreed their neces- 
sary fall into sin, and their necessary continuance in sin, as necessary 
means, in order to their necessary end, which is eternal damnation. 
Is not this an admirable Vindication of Calvin’s Decrees? Who does 
not see that the conclusion has no more to do with the premises than 
the following argument :—The lord chancellor may, without injustice, 
present Mr. T. to a living of fifty pounds, or to one of two hundred 
pounds, or he may reprobate Mr. T. from all the crown livings; and 
therefore the lord chancellor may, without injustice, sue Mr. T. for fifty 
pounds, or two hundred pounds, whenever he pleases. What name shall 
we give to the logic which deals in such arguments as these ? 

Arc. XX. Page 37. “He [man] derives his existence from God, 
and therefore [says Arminianism] God is bound to make his existence 
happy.” I would rather say God is bound both by the rectitude of his 
nature, and by the promises of his Gospel, not to reprobate any man to 
remediless sin and eternal misery, till he has actually deserved such a 
dreadful reprobation, at least by one thought, which he was not abso- 


id lutely predestinated to think. But Calvinism says that God absolutely 
_ reprobated a majority of men before they thought their first thought, or 
drew their first breath. If Mr. T. had stated the case in this plain 


mnanner, all his readers would have seen his doctrine of wrath without a 
veil, aud would have shuddered at the sight. 
Vox. II. 28 


434 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


Are. XXI. (Ibid.) “If God owe salvation to all his creatures as 
such, even the workers of iniquity will be saved, or God must cease to 
be just.” I never heard any Arminian say that God owes salvation, that 
is, heavenly glory, to all his creatures, as such: for then all horses, — 
being God’s creatures as well as men, would be taken to heaven. But 
we maintain that God will never mediately entail necessary, remediless 
sin upon any of his creatures, that he may infallibly punish them with 
eternal damnation. And we assert, if God had not graciously designed 
to replace all mankind in a state of initial salvation from sin and hell, 
according to the various dispensations of his redeeming grace, he would 
have punished Adam’s personal sin by a personal damnation. Nor 
would he have suffered him to propagate his fallen race, unless the 
second Adam had extended the blessings of redemption so far as to save 
from eternal misery all who die in their infancy, and to put all who live 
long enough to act as moral agents, in a capacity of avoiding hell by 
“ working out their own eternal salvation” in the day of their temporary — 
salvation; a day this, which inconsistent Calvinists call “the day of 
grace.” : 

Mr. Toplady, after decrying our doctrine of grace, as leading to gross 
iniquity, indirectly owns that the conditionality of the promise of eternal 
salvation guards owr Gospel against the charge of Antinomianism,—a 
dreadful charge this, which falls so heavily on Calvinism. Conscious — 
that he cannot defend his lawless, unconditional election to eternal life, 
and his wrathful, unconditional reprobation to eternal death, without 
taking the conditionality of eternal salvation out of the way, he ST 
to do it by the following dilemma :— 

Are. XXII. Page 38. «Is salvation due to a man that does not 
perform those conditions? If you say, Yes; you jump, hand over head, 
into what you yourself call Antinomianism. If you say that salvation is 
not due to a man, unless he do fulfil the conditions, it will follow that 
man’s own performances are meritorious of salvation, and bring God 
himself into debt.” 

We answer, 1. To show the tares of Calvinism, Mr. Toplady raises 
an artificial night by confounding the sparing salvation of the Father, 
the atoning salvation of the Son, the convincing, converting, and per- 
fecting salvation of the Spirit. Yea, he confounds actual salvation from 
a thousand temporal evils; temporary salvation from death and hell; 
initial salvation from the guiltand power of sin ; present salvation into 
the blessings of Christianity, Judaism, Heathenism; continued salvation 
into these blessings ; eternal salvation from death and hell; and eternal © 
salvation into glory and heaven: he confounds, I say, all these degrees 
of salvation, which is as absurd as if he confounded all degrees of life, 
the life of an embryo, of a sucking child, of a school boy, of a youth, of 
a man, of a departed saint, and of an angel. When he has thus 
shuffled his cards, and played the dangerous game of confusion, what 
wonder is it if he wins it, and makes his inattentive readers believe that 
what can be affirmed with truth of salvation into heavenly glory, must — 
be true also when it is affirmed of salvation from everlasting burnings ; — 
and that because God does not owe heaven and angelical honours to 
unborn children, he may jusily reprobate them to hell and to Satanical, 

._remediless wickedness as the way to it. 


. oo) 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 435 


2. Distinguishing what Mr. Toplady confounds, we do not scruple to 
maintain, that though God is not bound to give existence, much less hea- 
venly glory, to any creature ; yet all his creatures, who never personally 
offended him, have a right to expect at his hands salvation from ever- 
lasting fire, till they have deserved his eternal and absolute reprobation 


_ by committing some personal and avoidable offence. Hence it is, that 


all mankind are born in a state of inferior salvation: for they are all 
born out of eternal fire ; and to be out of hell is a considerable degree 
of salvation, unless we are suffered to live unavoidably to deserve 
everlasting burnings, which is the case of all Calvin’s imaginary 
reprobates. 

3. Mr. Toplady “throws out a barrel for the amusement of the whale, 
to keep him ineplay, and make him lose sight of the ship’—the fire 
ship. For, in order to make us lose sight of absolute reprobation, reme- 
diless wickedness, and everlasting fire, which (if Calvinism be true) is 
the unavoidable lot of the greatest part of mankind even in their mother’s 
womb ; he throws out this ambiguous expression, “salvation due ;” just 
as if there were no medium between “salvation due,” and Calvinian repro- 
bation due! Whereas it is evident that there is the medium of non-crea- 
tion, or that of destruction in a state of seminal existence ! 

4, The flaw of Mr. Toplady’s argument will appear in its proper 
magnitude, if we look at it through the following illustration :—A whole 
regiment is led to the left by the colonel, whom the general wanted to 
turn to the right. The colonel, who is personally in the fault, is par- 
doned; and five hundred of the soldiers, who, by the overbearing influ- 
ence of their colonel’s disobedience, were necessitated to move to the left, 
are appointed to be hanged for not going to the right. The general 
sends to Geneva for a Tertullus, who vindicates the susticEe of the 
execution by the following speech :—«Preferment is not due to obe- 
dient soldiers, much less to soldiers who have necessarily disobeyed 
orders ; and therefore your gracious general acts consistently with sus- 
TICE in appointing these five hundred soldiers to be hanged, for, as there 
is no medium between not promoting soldiers, and hanging them, he 
might justly have hanged the whole regiment. He is not bound, by any 
law, to give any soldier a captain’s commission ; and therefore he is 
perfectly just when he sends these military reprobates to the gallows.” 
Some of the auditors clap Tertullus’ argument: P. O. cries out, that it is 
‘most masterly ;” but a few of the soldiers are not quite convinced, and 
begin to question whether the holy service of the mild Saviour of the 
world is not preferable to the Antinomian service of the absolute repro- 
hater of countless myriads of unborn infants. 

5. The other flaw of Mr. Toplady’s dilemma consists in supposing 
that Gospel worthiness is incompatible with the Gospel ; whereas, all 
the doctrines of justice, which make one half of the Gospel, stand or 
fall with the doctrines of evangelical worthiness. We will shout it on 
the walls of mystic Geneva :—They that follow Christ shall “ walk with 
him in white,” rather than they that follow antichrist; “for they are 
[more] worthy. Watch and pray always, that you may be counted 
worthy to escape, and to stand rewardable before the Son of man. 
Whatever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, &c, knowing that of the 
Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance.” For he will say, 


436 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


in the great day of retribution, “ Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom, — 
&c ; for Iwas hungry, and ye gave me meat, &c. Go, ye cursed, into — 
everlasting fire, &c ; for I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat,” &e, — 
The doctrine of Pharisaic merit we abhor; but the doctrine of reward- 
able obedience we honour, defend, and extol. Believers, let not Mr. 
Toplady “ beguile you of your reward through voluntary humility. If ye. 
live after the flesh ye shall die: but if ye, through the Spirit, mortify the 
deeds of the body, ye shall live. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
he also reap. For we shall all appear before the judgment seat of 
Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body, accord. 
ing to what he has done, whether it be good or bad.” Look to yourselves, 
that ye lose not the things which ye have wrought. So fight, that you 
may not,be reprobated by remunerative justice. “So run, that you may 
[judicially] obtain an incorruptible crown. Remember Lot’s wife. 
By patient continuance in well doing seek for glory ;” and God, accord- 
ing to his gracious promises, will “render you eternal life: for he is 
not” untrue to break his evangelical promises, nor “ unrighteous to for- 
get your work that proceedeth from love.” Your persevering obedience 
shall be graciously rewarded by ‘a crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give you at that day ; and then great shall 
be your reward in heaven.” For Christ himself hath said, “ Be faithful unto 
death, and I will give thee the crown of life. My sheep follow me, and 
I will give unto them eternal life” in glory. For I am “the author of 
eternal salvation to them that obey me.” What can be plainer than this 
Gospel ? Shall the absurd cries of popery ! merit! é&c, make us ashamed 
of Christ’s disciples; of Christ’s words, and of Christ himself? God 
forbid! Let the Scriptures—“let God be true,” though Meri Toplady 
should be mistaken. 

Are. XXIII. Page 38. “Ifhe [God] be not obliged, in justice, to save 
mankind, then neither is he unjust in passing by some men; nay, he 
might, had he so pleased, have passed by the whole of mankind, without 
electing any one individual of the fallen race ; and yet have continued 
holy, just, and good.” 

True: he might have passed them by without fixing any blot upon 
his justice and goodness, if, by passing them by, Mr. 'T. means “ leaving 
them in the wretched state of seminal existence,” in which state his 
vindictive justice found them after Adam’s fall. For then an unknown 
punishment, seminally endured, would have borne a just proportion to an 
unknown sin, seminally committed. But if, by passing some men by, this 
gentleman means, as Calvinism does, “ absolutely predestinating some 
men to necessary, remediless sin, and to unavoidable, eternal damna- 
tion ;” we deny that God might justly have passed by the whole of 
mankind ; we deny that he might justly have passed by one single man, 
woman, or child. Nay, we affirm that if we conceive Satan, or the eyil 
principle of Manes, as exerting creative power, we could not conceive 
him worse employed, than in forming an absolute reprobate in embryo; 
that is, ‘a creature unconditionally and absolutely doomed to remediless 
wickedness and everlasting fire.” 

As the simple are frequently imposed upon by an artful substituting 
of the harmless word, “ passing by,” for the terrible word, “ absolutely 
reprobating to death,” I beg leave to show, by a simile, the vast differ- 


i et eo 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 437 


ence there is between these two phrases :—A king may, without injustice, 
pass by all the beggars in the streets, without giving them any bounty ; 
because, if he does them no good in thus passing them by, he does them 
no harm. But suppose he called two captains of his guards, and said 
to the first, If you see me pass by little, dirty beggars, without giving 
them an alms, throw them into the mire; or if their parents have cast 
them into the mire, keep them there: then let the second captain follow 
with his men, and take all the dirty beggars who have thus been passed 
by, and throw them, for being dirty, into a furnace hotter than that of 
Nebuchadnezzar : suppose, i say, the king passed his little indigent sub- 
jects by in this manner, would not his decree of preterition be a more 
than diabolical piece of cruelty? I need not inform my judicious readers 
that the passing by of the king represents Calvinian passing by, that is, 
absolute reprobation to death ; that the first captain, who throws little 
beggars into the dirt, or keeps them there, represents the decree of the 
means, which necessitates the reprobate to sin, or to continue in sin ; and 
that the second captain represents the decree of the end, which necessi- 
tates them to go to everlasting burnings. 

Are. XXIV. Page 39. Mr. Toplady endeavours to reconcile Cal- 
vinian reprobation with Divine justice by an appeal “to God’s provi- 
dential dealings with men in the present life.” His verbose argument, 
stript of its Geneva dress, and brought naked to open light, may run 
thus :—“If God may, without injustice, absolutely place the sons of 
Adam in circumstances of temporary misery, he may also, without 
injustice, reprobate them to eternal torments: but he may justly place 
the sons of Adam in circumstances of temporary misery; witness his 
actually doing it: and therefore he may without injustice reprobate 
them to eternal torments, and to remediless sin, as the way to those tor- 
ments.” The flaw of this argument is in the first proposition, and con- 
sists in supposing that because God can justly appoimt us to suffer “a 
light affliction, which [comparatively speaking] is but for a moment, and 
which [if we are not perversely wanting to ourselves] will work for us 
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” 2 Cor. iv, 17, he 
ean also justly appoint us to remediless wickedness and eternal damna- 


‘tion. This conclusion is all of a piece with the following argument :— 


A father may justly punish his disobedient child with a rod, and give his 
sick child a bitter medicine ; and therefore he may justly break all his 
bones with a forge hammer, and daily drench him with melted lead. 
To produce such absurd consequences without a mask, is sufficiently to 
answer them : see farther what is said upon page 42. 

Arc. XXV. Page 40. Mr. Toplady is, if possible, still more abun- 
dantly mistaken, while, to prove the justice of Calvinian reprobation, he 
appeals to “the real inequality of providential distributions below.” 
We cannot “ pronounce the great Father of all wnjust, because he does 
not make all his offspring equally rich, good, and happy ;” and there- 
fore God may jusily reprobate some of them to eternal misery ; just as 
if inferior degrees of goodness and happiness were the same thing as 
remediless wickedness and eternal misery ! 

Are. XXVI. (Ibid.) “The devils may be cast down to hell to be 
everlastingly damned, and be appointed thereto; and it gives no great 
concern. No hard thoughts against God arise: no charge of cruelty, 


438 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S : 


injustice,” &c. Indeed, if Dr. Gill, whom Mr. Toplady quotes, i 
uated that God had absolutely predestinated myriads of angels to 
lasting damnation, through the appointed means of necessary sin; and 
that God had made this appointment thousands of years before most of — 
those angels had any personal existence, it would give us great concern, — 
both for the honour of God’s justice, and for the angels so cruelly — 
treated by free wrath. But as matters are, the case of devils gives us 
no great concern, because they fell knowingly, wilfully, and without 
necessity. "To the end of the day of their visitation, they personally 
rejected God’s gracious counsel toward them; and, as they obstinately 
refused to subserve the judicial display of his remunerative bounty, it is 
highly agreeable to reason and equity, that they should subserve the 
judicial display of his vindictive justice. 

Are. XXVII. Page 41. “The king of Great Britain has unlimited 
right of peerage, &c. Will any one be so weak and perverse as to 
charge him with tyranny and injustice, only because it is not his will, 
though it is in his power, to make all his subjects noblemen?” ‘This is 
another barrel thrown out to the whale. This illustration does not 
touch, but conceal the question. For the similar question is not whether 
the king is wnjust in leaving gentlemen and tradesmen among the gentry 
and commonalty, but whether he could, without injustice and tyranny, 
pretend, that because he has an unlimited right of peerage, he has also 
an unlimited right of (what I beg leave to call) felonage,—a Calvinian 
right, this, of appointing whom he pleases to rob and murder, that he 
may appoint whom he pleases to a cell in Newgate, and a swing at 
Tyburn! This is the true state of the case. If Mr. T. had cast a 
veil over it, it is a sign that he is not destitute of the feeling of justice, 
and that, if he durst look at his Manichean picture of God’s sovereignty 
without a veil, he would turn from it with the same precipitancy with 
which he would start back from the abomination of the Moabites, or 
from the grim idol to which mistaken Israelites sacrificed their children 
in the valley of Himnom. 

Are. XXVIII. Page 42. “Misery, though endured but for a year, 
&c, is, in its own nature, and for the time being, as truly misery, as it 
would be if protracted ever so long, &c. And God can no more 
cease to be just for a year, or for a man’s lifetime, than he can cease 
to be just for a century, or for ever. By the same rule that he can, and 
does, without impeachment of his moral attributes, permit any one being 
to be miserable for a moment, he may permit that being to be miserable 
for a much longer time: and so on, ad infinitum ;” that is, in plain 
English, for ever. The absurdity of this argument may be sufficiently 
pointed out by a similar plea :—A surgeon may, without injustice, open 
an imposthume in my breast, and give me pain for an hour, and there- 
fore he may justly scarify me, and flay me alive ten years. A judge 
may, without impeachment of his justice, order a man to be burnt im the 
hand for a moment, and therefore his justice will continue unstained, if 
he order red hot irons to be applied to that man’s hands and feet, back 
and breast, ad infinitum. I hope that when Mr. Toplady threw this 
scrap of Latin over the nakedness of his Diana, his good nature sug- 
gested that she is too horrible to be looked at without a veil. But could 
he not have borrowed the language of mother Church, without borrow 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 439 


img a maxim which might shock any inquisitor, and might have put 
Bonner himself to a stand? 

Arc. XXIX. Page 44. “He [God] permits, and has, for near six 
thousand years, permitted the reign of natural evil. Upon the same 
principle might he not extend its reign to—a never-ending duration ?” 
He might, if a never-ending line of moral evil, personally and avoidably 
brought on by free agents upon themselves, called for a never-ending 
line of penal misery: and our Lord himself says that he will: “These 
[the wicked, who have finally hardened themselves] shall go away into 
everlasting punishment, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
quenched,” Matt. xxv, 46; Mark ix, 48. 

Arc. XXX. (Ibid.) “ But still the old difficulty, [a difficulty which 
Arminianism will never solve,] &c, the old difficulty survives. How 
came moral evil to be permitted, when it might as easily have been hin- 
dered, by a Being of infinite goodness, power, and wisdom?” Page 39, 
Mr. T. speaks partly the same language, giving us to understand, as 
openly as he dares, that God worketh all things in all men, even wick- 
edness in the wicked. His pernicious, though guarded insinuation, 
runs thus :— You will find it extremely difficult (may I not say zmpos- 
sible?) to point out the difference between permission and design, in a 
being possessed (as God most certainly is) of unlimited wisdom and 
unlimited power.” Hence we are given to understand, that because 
God does not absolutely hinder the commission of sin, “it would non- 
plus all the sagacity of man, should we attempt clearly to show wherein 
the difference lies” between God’s permitting sin, and his designing, or 
decreeing sin, or (to speak with more candour) between God’s placing 
free agents in a state of probation with a strict charge not to sin, and 
between his being the author of sin. Is not this a “most Tasterly” 
“ Vindication of the Decrees and Providence of God,” supposing you 
mean by “ God” the sin-begetting deity worshipped by the Manichees ? 
This Antinomian blow at the root of Divine holiness is dangerous: I 
shall therefore ward it off by various answers. 

1. When God placed man in paradise, far from permitting him to sin, 
he strictly forbade him to do it. Is it right then in Mr, Toplady to call 
God “the permitter of sin,” when the Scriptures represent him as the 
forbidder of it? Nay, is it not very wrong to pour shame upon the 
holiness of God, and absurdity upon the reason of man, by making a 
Calvinistic world believe that forbidding and threatening is one and the 
same thing with permitting and giving leave ; or, at least, that the differ- 
ence is so trifling, that “all the sagacity of man will find it extremely 
difficult, not to say impossible, clearly to point it out ?” 

2. I pretend to a very little share of “all the sagacity of man ;” and 
yet, without being nonplused at all, I hope to show, by the following 
illustration, that there is a prodigious difference between not hindering 
and design, in the case of entering in of sin :— 

A general wants to try the faithfulness of his soldiers, that he may 


' reward those who will fight, and punish those who will go over to the 


enemy ; in order to display, before all the army, his love of bravery, his 
hatred of cowardice, his remunerative goodness, and his impartial 
justice. To this end, he issues out a proclamation, importing that all 
the volunteers, who shall gallantly keep the field in such an important 


440 / ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S . 


engagement, shall be made captains ; and that all those who shall go over 
to the enemy shall be shot. 1 suppose him endued with infinite wisdom, 
knowledge, and power. By his omniscience he ‘sees that some will 
desert ; by bis omnipotence he could indeed hinder them from doing it: 
for he could chain them all to so many posts stuck in the ground around 
their colours: but his infinite wisdom does not permit him to do it; as 
it would be a piece of madness in him to defeat by forcible means his — 
design of trying the courage of his soldiers, in order to reward and punish 
them according to their gallant or cowardly behaviour in the field. 
And therefore, though he is persuaded that many will be shot, he puts 
his proclamation in force ; because, upon the whole, it will best answer 
his wise designs. However, as he does not desire, much less design, 
that any of his soldiers should be shot for desertion, he does what his 
wisdom permits him to do to prevent their going over to the enemy; 
and yet, for the above-mentioned reason, he does not absolutely hinder 

them from doing it. Now, in such a case, who does not see that the 

difference between “not absolutely hindering” and designing, is as dis- 

cernible as the difference between reason and folly; or between wisdom ' 
and wickedness? By such dangerous insinuations as that which this 

illustration exposes, the simple are imperceptibly led to confound Christ 

and Belial; and to think that there is little difference between the 

celestial Parent of good, and the Manichean Parent of good and evil: 

the Janus of the fatalists, who wears two faces, an angel’s face and a 

devil’s face; a mongrel, imaginary god this, whose fancied ways are, 

like his fancied nature, full of duplicity. 

3. To the preceding illustration I beg leave to add the following 
argument :—No unprejudiced person will, I hope, refuse his assent to 
the truth of this proposition,—A world, wherein there are rational free 
agents, like angels and men; irrational free agents, like dogs and 
horses ; necessary agents, like plants and trees; and dead matter, like 
stones and clods of earth: such a world, I say, is as much superior in 
perfection to a world where there are only necessary agents and dead 
matter, as a place inhabited by learned men and curious beasts, contains 
more wonders than one which is only stocked with fine flowers and 
curious stones. If this be granted, it necessarily follows that thes world 
was very perfect, calculated to display his infinite power and manifold — 
wisdom. Now, in the very nature of things, rational free agents, being 
capable of knowing their Creator, owe to him gratitude and obedience, 
and to one another assistance and love; and therefore they are “ under — 
a law,” which (as free agents) they may keep or break as they please. 
“But could not God necessitate free agents to keep the law they are 

7 
‘ 
d 


under 7” " 
Yes, says Calvinism, for he is endued with infinite power: but Serip- 
ture, good sense, and matter of fact say, No: because, although God is — 
endued with infinite powér, he is also endued with imfinite wisdom. 
And it would be as absurd to create free agents in order to necessitate 
them, as to do a thing in order to undo it. Beside, (I repeat it,) God’s 
distributive justice could never be displayed, nor would free obedience 
be paid by rationals, and crowned by the Rewarder and “ Judge of all 
the earth,” unless rationals were free-willing creatures, and therefore, 
the moment you absolutely necessitate them, you destroy them as free 
2 


c 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 441 


agents, and you rob God of two of his most glorious ttles, that of 
Rewarder, and that of Judge. Thus we account for the origin of evil 
in a Scriptural and rational manner, without the help of fatalism, Mani- . 
cheism, or Calvinism. Mr. Toplady replies :— 

Are. XXXI. Pages 44, 45. “O, but God himself is a free agent, 

though his will is necessarily, unchangeably, and singly determined to 
good, and to good only. So are the elect angels. So are the glorious 
souls of saints departed, &c, and so might Adam have been, had God 
pleased to have so created him.” 
_ This is the grand objection of President’ Edwards, which I have 
- answered in the Scripture Scales, page 196. I shall, however, make 
here a few remarks upon it. (1.) If “God worketh all things, &e, 
even wickedness in the wicked,” as the consistent Predestinarians 
directly or indirectly tell us, it is absurd in them to plead that he is 
singly determined to good, and to good only: for every body knows that 
the God of Manes is full of duplicity; having an evil principle, which 
absolutely predestinates and causes all the wickedness, and a good prin- 
ciple, which absolutely predestinates and causes all the virtue in the 
world. As for the God of Christians, he is not so necessitated to do 
that which is good, but he might, if he would, do the most astonishing 
act of injustice and barbarity: for he might, if he would, absolutely 
doom myriads of unborn infants to remediless wickedness and ever- 
lasting fire, before they have deserved this dreadful doom, so much as 
by the awkward motion of their little finger. Nor need I tell Mr. Top- 
lady this, who believes that God has actually done so. 

2. God is not ina state of probation under a superior being, who 
calls himself the rewarder, and who says, “ Vengeance is mine, and I 
will repay:” nor shall he ever be tried by one who will judicially 
“render to him according to what he hath done, whether it be good or 
bad.” 

3. If faithful angels are unchangeably fixed in virtue, and unfaithful 
angels in vice, the fixedness of their nature is the consequence of the 
good or bad use which they have made of their liberty; and therefore 
their confirmation in good, or in evil, flows from a judicial election or 
reprobation, which displays the distributive justice of their Judge, 
Rewarder, and Avenger. 

_ 4, Nothing can be more absurd than to couple absolute necessity 
with moral free agency. Angels and glorified souls are necessitated to 
serve God and love one another, as a good man is necessitated not to 
murder the king, and not to blow his own brains out. Such a necessity 
is far from being absolute: for, if a good man would, he might gradually 
oyercome his reluctance to the greatest crimes. Thus David, who was 
no doubt as chaste and loving once as Joseph, overcame his strong 
«version to adultery and murder. 

Should it be said, What! Can glorified saints and angels fall away? 
{reply, They will never fall away, because they are called off the stage 
of probation, stand far above the reach of temptation, and have “ hence- 
forth crowns of righteousness laid up for them, which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, shall give them at that day.” In the meantime, “they 
rest from their [probatory] labours, and their works follow them.” But 
still, in the nature of things, they are as able to disobey, as Joseph was 


442 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


to commit adultery, had he set his heart upon it: for if they 
capacity of disobeying, they would have no capacity of obeying, in 
moral sense of the word: their obedience would be as necessary, and 
far from morality, as the passive obedience of a leaden ball, which 
drop, with an absurd command to tend toward the centre. If I am not 
mistaken, these answers fully set aside Mr. T.’s argument taken from 
the necessary goodness of God, angels, and glorified saints.. ‘ee 

Arc. XXXII. Page 45. “God is, and cannot but be inviolably just, 
amidst all the sufferings of fallen angels and fallen men, involuntary 
beings as they are. And he will continue to be just in all they are yet 
to suffer.” That “ God is, and will be just,” in all that fallen angels and 
men have suffered, and may yet suffer, is most true, because they are 
voluntary beings (Mr. Toplady says, “involuntary beings”) and free 
agents (Mr. 'Toplady would say, necessary agents) who personally de- 
serve what they suffer; or who, if they suffer without personal offence, 
as infants do, have in Christ a rich cordial, and an efficacious remedy, © 
which will cause their temporary suflerings to answer to all eternity the — 
most admirable ends for themselves, if they do not reject God’s gracious, 
castigatory, probatory, or purificatory counsels toward them, when they — 
come to act as free agents. But that “ God is and will be just,” in ab. 
solutely ordaining “involuntary beings” to sin and be damned, is wha, 
has not yet been proved by one argument which can bear the light. 
However, Mr. Toplady, with the confidence which suits his peculiar 
logic, concludes this part of his subject by the following triumphal ex- 
clamation :-— 

Are. XXXII. (Jbid.) “ And if so, what becomes of the objection to 
God’s decree of preterition, [a soft word for absolute reprobation to reme- 
diless sin and eternal death,| drawn from the article of injustice ?” 

Why, it stands in full force, notwithstanding all the arguments which 
have yet been produced. Nay, the way to show that an objection is — 
unanswerable, is to answer it as Mr. Toplady has done; that is, by pro 
ducing arguments which equally shock reason and conscience, and which 
are crowned with this new paradox :—“ Fallen angels, and fallen mer 
are involuntary beings.” So that the last subterfuge of moderate Cal 
Vinists is now given up. For when they try to vindicate God’s justice, 
with respect to the damnation of their imaginary reprobates, they say 
that the poor creatures are damned as voluntary agents. But Mr. Top- 
lady informs us that they are damned as “ involuntary beings,” that is, 
as excusable beings; and might I not add, as sinless beings? For (evan- 
gelically speaking) is it possible that an “involuntary being” should be 
sinful? Why is the murderer’s sword sinless? Why is the candle by 
which an incendiary fires your house an innocent flame? Is it not be- 
cause they are “ involuntary beings,” or mere tools used by other beings? 
A cart accidentally falls upon you, and you involuntarily fall upon a 
child, who is killed upon the spot. The father of the child wants you 
hanged as a murderer: but the judge pronounces you perfectly guilt- 
less. Why? Truly because you were, in that case, an “involuntary 
being” as well as the cart. When, therefore, Mr. Toplady asserts that 
we “are involuntary beings,” and insinuates that God is just inf abso- 
lutely predestinating us to sin necessarily, and to be damned eternally, 
he proves absurdum per absurdius—injustum per injustius—crudele per 


- i net. aia aaa tt 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 443 


_ erudelius. In a word, he gives a finishing stroke to God’s justice ; 

and his pretended “ Vindication” of that tremendous attribute proves, if 

_ I may use his own expression, a public, though (I am persuaded) an 
undesigned, “ defamation” of it. 


SECTION V. 


_ An answer to the arguments by which Mr. Toplady endeavours to recon- 
cile Calvinian REPROBATION with Divine mERcyY. 


Ir it is impossible to reconcile Calvinian reprobation with Divine sus- 
Tice, how much more with Divine mercy! This is however the difficult 
task which Mr. T. sets about next. Consider we his arguments :— 

Arc. XXXIV. Page 45. “As God’s forbearing to create more 
worlds than he has, is no impeachment of his omnipotence: so his for- 
bearing to saye as many as he might, is no impeachment of his infinite 
mercy.” ‘The capital flaw of this argument consists in substituting still 
the phrase “not saving,” for the phrase “ absolutely reprobating to reme 
diless sin and everlasting burnings.” The difference between these 
phrases, which Mr. Toplady uses as equivalent, is prodigious. Nobody 
ever supposed that God is unmerciful because he does not take stones 
into heaven, or because he does not save every pebble from its opacity, 
by making it transparent and glorious as a diamond: for pebbles suffer 
nothing by being “passed by,” and not saved into adamantine glory. 
But if God made every pebble an organized, living body, capable of the 
keenest sensations ; and if he appointed that most of these “ involuntary 
[sensible] beings” should be absolutely opaque, and should be cast into 
a lime kiln, there to endure everlasting burnings, for not having the 
transparency which he decreed they should never have; would it not 
_ be impossible to reconcile his conduct to the lowest idea we can form 
even of Bonner’s mercy ? 

Having thus pointed out the sandy foundation of Mr. Toplady’s argu- 
ment, I shall expose its absurdity by a similar way of arguing. I am 
to prove that the king may, without impeachment of his mercy, put the 
greatest part of his soldiers in such trying circumstances as shall neces- 
sitate them to desert and to be shot for desertion. To do this, I learn 
logic of Mr. T. and say, “ As the king’s forbearing to create more lords 
than he has, is no impeachment of his unlimited right of peerage; so 
his forbearing to raise as many soldiers as he might, is no impeachment 
of his great mercy.” So far the argument is conclusive. But if by 
not raising soldiers I artfully mean absolutely appointing and necessitat- 
ing them to desert and be shot, I vindicate the king’s mercy as logically 
as Mr. T. vindicates the mercy of Manes’ God. 

Arce. XXXV. Page 46. “If therefore the decree of [Calvinian] 
reprobation be exploded, on account of its imaginary incompatibility with 
Divine mercy, we must, upon the same principle, charge God with want 
of goodness in almost every part of his relative conduct.” If this dark 
argumént be brought to the light, it will read thus :—“ God is znfinately 
good in himself, though he limits the exercise of his goodness in not 
forming so many beings as he might, and in not making them all so 


444 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


glorious as he could; and therefore he is infinitely merciful, though he 
absolutely appoints millions of unborn creatures to remediless sin 
everlasting fire.” But what has the conclusion to do with the premis 
What would Mr. T. think of me, if I presented the public with the fol- 
lowing sophism? “ Nobody can reasonably charge the king with want 
of goodness for not enriching and ennobling every body; and therefore 
nobody can reasonably charge him with want of mercy for decreeing 
that so many of his new-born subjects shall necessarily be trained up in 
absolute rebellion, that he may legally throw them into a fiery furnace, © 
for necessarily fulfilling his absolute decree concerning their rebellion.” 
Nevertheless, this absurd argument contains just as much truth and 
mercy, as that of Mr. Toplady. | 
Arc. XXXVI. (Idid.) “There is no way of solidly, &c, justifying — 
the ways of God with men, but upon this grand datum, That the exer- — 
cise of his own infinite mercy is regulated by the voluntary determina- — 
tion of his own most wise and sovereign pleasure. Allow but this 
rational, Scriptural, &c, proposition, and every cayil, grounded on the 
chimerical unmercifulness of non-election ceases even to be plausible.” 
The defect of this argument consists also in covering the left leg of — 
Calvinism, and in supposing that Calvinian non-election is a bare non- 
exertion of a peculiar mercy displayed toward some; whereas it is a 
positive act of barbarity. We readily grant that God is infinitely mer- 
ciful, though his infinite wisdom, truth, and justice do not suffer him to — 
show the same mercy to aL, which he does to somz. But it is absurd 
to suppose, that because he is not bound to “show mercy” to all those 
who have personally and unnecessarily offended him (or indeed to any — 
one of them,) he may show injustice and cruelty to unborn creatures, — 
who never personally offended him so much as by one wandering © 
thought, and he may absolutely doom myriads of them to sin without — 
remedy, and to be damned without fail. , 
Arc. XXXVII. Page 48. After all his pleas, to show that God can, : 
| 
\ 
‘ 
> 
p 
A 


GS 


> 
Pie 


without impeachment of his holiness, justice, and mercy, absolutely 

appoint his unborn creatures to remediless wickedness and everlasting 

torments, Mr. Toplady relents, and seems a little ashamed of Calyi- 

nian reprobation. He tells us that “yreprobation is, for the most part, — 
something purely negative,” and “has, so far as God is concerned, more — 
in it of negation than positivity.” But Mr. Toplady knows that the 

unavoidable END of absolute reprobation is DAMNATION, and that the — 
means conducive to this fearful end is unavoidable wickedness ; and he 

has already told us, p. 17, that “God’s own decree secures the means ~ 
as well as the end, and accomplishes the end by the means.” Now 

securing and accomplishing a thing, is something altogether positive. — 
Hence it is, that, p. 83, Mr. T. calls the decrees by which the repro- 
bates sin, not only permissive but “effective ;” and tells us, p. 77, that 
“God efficaciously permitted horrible wickedness.” And herein he 
exactly follows Calvin, who, in his comment on Rom. ix, 18, says, 
“INDURANDI verbum, quum Deo in Scripturis tribuitur, non solum, PER- 
MissionEM (ut volunt diluti quidam moderatores sed) Divine quoque iRm 
ACTIONEM significat.” ‘The word HARDEN when it is attributed to God 
in Scripture, means not only PERMISSION, (as some washy, compromising 
divines would have it,) but it signifies also ruz action of Divine wrath.’ 


VINDICATION OF THE DECTEES. 445 


Beside, something negative amounts, in a thousand cases, to some- 
thing positive. A general, for example, denies gunpowder to some. of 
his soldiers, to whom he owes a grudge; he hangs them for not firing, 
and then exculpates himself by saying, “ My not giving them powder 
was a thing purely negative. I did nothing to them to hinder them 
from firing: on the contrary, I bid them fire away.” This is exactly 
the case with the Manichean God and his imaginary reprobates. He bids 
them repent or perish, believe or be damned, do good works or depart 
into everlasting fire. And yet, all the while, he keeps from them every 
dram of true grace, whereby they might savingly repent, believe, and 
obey. Is it not surprising that so many of our Gospel ministers should 
call preaching such a doctrine, preaching the Gospel and exalting Christ? 
But Mr. Toplady replies :— 

Arc. XXXVIII. Page 48. “If I am acquainted with an indigent 
neighbour, and have it in my power to enrich him, but do it not, am I 
the author of that man’s poverty, only for resolving to permit him, and 
for actually permitting* him to continue poor?’ Am I blamable for his 
poverty, because I do not give him the utmost Iam able? Similar is 


* Not unlike this argument is that of the letter writer, on whom I have already 
bestowed a note, sec. il. 

« Divine justice,” says he, pp. 4, 5, could not condemn, till the law was broken.” 
True; but Calvinian free wrath reprobated from all eternity, and consequently 
before the law was either broken or given. ‘‘ Therefore condemnation did not 
take place before a law was given and broken.” This author trifles; for if Cal- 
vinian reprobation took place before the creation of Adam, and if it necessarily 
draws after it the uninterrupted breach of the law, and the condemnation con- 
sequent upon that breach, Calvinian reprobation differs no more from everlast- 
ing damnation, than condemning and necessitating a man to commit murder, 
that he may infallibly be hanged, differs from condemning him to be hanged. But 
‘suppose that out of twenty found guilty, his majesty King George should par- 
don ten, he is not the cause of the other ten being executed. It was his cle- 
mency that pardoned any: it was their breaking the laws of the kingdom that 
condemned them, and not his majesty.” Indeed, it was his majesty who con- 
demned them, if, in order to do it without fail, he made, (1.) Efficacious and 
irresistible decrees of the means, that they should necessarily and unavoidably 
be guilty of robbery; and, (2.) Efficacious and irresistible decrees of the end, 
that they should unavoidably be condemned for their crimes, and inevitable guilt. 
The chain by which the God of Manes and Calvin drags poor reprobates to hell, 
has three capital links; the first is absolute, unconditional reprobation : the second 
is necessary, remediless sin: and the third is insured, eternal damnation. Now 
although the middle link intervenes between the first and the last link, it is only 
a necessary connection between them: for, says Mr. Toplady, p. 17, ‘“‘ God’s own 
decree secures the means as well as the end, and accomplishes the end by the 
means” That is, (when this doctrine is applied to the present case,) the first 
link, which is Calvinian reprobation, draws the middle, diabolical link, which is 
remediless wickedness, as well as the last link, which is infernal and finished 
damnation. Thus Calvin’s God accomplishes damnation by means of sin; or, if 
you please, he draws the third link by means of the second. Who can consider 
this and not wonder at the prejudice of the letter writer, who boldly affirms that, 
upon the Calyinian scheme, God is nu more the author and cause of the damna- 
tion of the reprobates, than the king is the cause of the condemnation of the 
criminals whom he does not pardon! For my part, the more I consider Calvin- 
ism, the more I see that the decree of absolute reprobation, which is insepara- 
ble from the decree of absolute election, represents God as the sure author of sin 
in order to represent him as the sure author of damnation. The horrible mystery 
of absolute reprobation, necessary sin, and insured damnation, is not less essential 
to Calvinism, than the glorious mystery of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is es- 
sential to Christianity ; and yet Calvinism is the Gospel! the doctrines of grace’ 


446 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


the case now in debate. Ever since the fall of Adam, mankind are by 
nature spiritually poor.” “i 

Mr. T. is greatly mistaken, when he says, “Similar is the case now 
in debate.” To show that it is entirely dissimilar, we need only m ake 
his partial illustration stand fairly “upon its legs.” If you know that 
your neighbour, who is an industrious tenant of yours, must work ¢ 
break ; and if, in order to make him break, according to your decree 
the end, you make a decree of the means—an efficacious decree that _ 
his cattle shall die, that his plough shall be stolen, that he shall fall sick, 
and that nobody shall help him; I boldly say, You are “the author of 
that man’s poverty :” and if, when you have reduced him to sordid want, _ 
and have, by this means, clothed his numerous family with filthy rags, 
you make another efficacious, absolute decree, that a majority of his” 
children shall never have a good garment, and that at whatsoever time” 
the constable shall find them with the only ragged coat which their” 
bankrupt father could afford to give them, they shall all be sent to the 
house of correction, and severely whipt there, merely for not having o1 
a certain coat, which you took care they should never have; and fo 
wearing the filthy rags, which you decreed they should necessaril 
wear, you show yourself as merciless to the poor man’s children, as you 
showed yourself i] natured to the poor man himself. To prove tha 
this is a just state of the case, if the doctrine of absolute predestina- 
tion be true, I refer the reader to section ii, where he will find Calyin- 
ism “ on its legs.” 

Upon the whole, if I mistake not, it is evident that the arguments by 
which Mr. Toplady endeavours to reconcile Calvinian reprobation with 
Divine MERcy, are as inconclusive as those by which he tries to recon- 
cile it with Divine sustice ; both sorts of arguments drawing all their 
plausibility from the skill with which Logica Genevensis tucks up the 
left leg of Calvinism, or covers it with deceitful buskins, which are 
called by a variety of delusive names, such as “ passing by, not electing, 
not owing salvation, limiting the display of goodness, not extending mercy 
infinitely, not enriching,” &c, just as if all these phrases together con- 
veyed one just idea of Calvinian reprobation, which is an absolute, 
unconditional dooming of myriads of «inborn creatures to live and die 
in necessary, remediless wickedness, and then to “ depart into everlasting” 
fire,” merely because Adam, according to Divine predestination, neces- 
sarily sinned ; obediently fulfilling God’s absolute, irreversible, and effi- 
cacious decree of the means (sin:) an Antinomian decree this, by which, 
if Calvinism be true, God secured and accomplished the decree of the 
end, that is, the remediless sin and eternal damnation of the reprobate : 
for, says Mr. T., p. 17, “God’s own decree secures the means as well 
as the end, and accomplishes the end by the means.” 

And now, candid reader, say if Mr. T. did not act with a degree of 
partiality, when he called his book “ A Vindication of God’s Decrees, &c, 
from the defamations of Mr. Wesley ;” and if he could not, with greater 
propriety, have called it, “ An Unscriptural and Ilogical Vindication of 
the Horrible Decree, from the Scriptural and rational exceptions made 
against it by Mr. Wesley.” 


4 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 447 


SECTION VI. 


A view of the Scrrprure proors by which Mr. T. attempts to demon- 
strate the truth of Calvinian reprobation. 


Tuar the Old and New Testament hold forth a parTrAL REPROBATION 
of distinguishing grace, and an IMPARTIAL REPROBATION of retributive 
justice, is a capital truth of the Gospel. One of the leading errors of 
the Calvinists consists in confounding these two reprobations, and the 
elections which they draw after them. By the impetuous blast of 
prejudice, and the fire of a heated imagination, modern Aarons melt the 
partial election of grace, and the zmpartial election of justice ; and, 
casting them in the mould of confusion, they make their one partial 
election of unscriptural, necessitating, Antinomian FREE GRACE, to which 
they are obliged to oppose their one partial reprobation of necessitating, 
Manichean rrez wrarn. Now, as the Scriptures frequently speak of 
the harmless reprobation of grace, and of the awful reprobation of justice, 
it would be surprising, indeed, if out of so large a book as the Bible, 
Logica Genevensis could not extract a few passages which, by being 
wrested from the context, and misapplied according to art, seem to favour 
Calvinian reprobation. Such passages are produced in the following 

ages :— 

i: XXXIX. Page 19. After transcribing Rom. ix, 20-23, Mr. 
Toplady says, “ Now are these the words of Scripture, or are they not? 
If not, prove the forgery. Ifthey be, you cannot fight against reprobatzon 
without fighting against God.” Far from fighting against Scripture 
Treprobation, we maintain, as St. Paul does in Rom. ix, (1.) That God 
has an absolute right gratuitously to call whom he pleases to either of 
his two grand covenants of peculiarity, (Judaism and Christianity,) and 
gratuitously to reprobate whom he will from the blessings peculiar to 
these covenants; leaving as many nations and individuals as he thinks 
fit, under the general blessings of the gracious covenants which he made 

with reprieved Adam, and with spared Noah. (2.) We assert that God 
has an indubitable right judicially to reprobate obstinate unbelievers under 
all the dispensations of his grace, and to appoint that (as stubborn unbe- 
lievers) they shall be “ vessels of wrath fitted for destruction” by their 
own unbelief, and not by God’s free wrath. This is ail the reprobation 
which St. Paul contends for in Rom. ix. (See Scales, sec. xi, where 

Mr. T.’s objection is answered at large.) Therefore, with one hand 
we defend Scripture reprobation, and with the other we attack Calvinian 
reprobation ; maintaining that the Scripture reprobation of grace, and 
of justice, are as different from Calvinian, damning reprobation, as 
appointing a soldier to continue a soldier, and to be a captain, or a wilful 
deserter to be shot, is different from appointing a soldier necessarily to 
desert, that he may be unavoidably shot for desertion. 

Having thus vindicated the godly reprobation maintained by St. Paul 
from the misapprehensions of Mr. Toplady, we point at all the passages 
which we have produced in the Scripture Scales, in defence of the 
doctrines of justice, the conprrronatiry of the reward of the inheritance, 
and the rrrEepom of the will; and, retorting Mr. T.’s argument, we say, , 
“ Now, are these the words of Scripture, or are they not? If not, prove 


448 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


the forgery. If they be, you cannot fight against [the conditional] repro. 
bation [which we defend,] without fighting against God.” You cannot — 
fight for Calvinian reprobation without fighting for free wrath and the 
evil-principled Deity worshipped by the Manichees. b.. 

Arc. XL. Page 51. Mr. T. supports absolute reprobation by quoting 
1 Sam. ii, 25: “They [the sons of Eli] hearkened not to the voice of 
their father, because the Lord would slay them,” 1 Sam. ii, 25. Here © 
we are given to understand, that by the decree of the means, the Lord 
secured the disobedience of these wicked men, in order to accomplish 
his decree of the end, that is, their absolute destruction. 4 

To this truly Calvinian insinuation we answer, (1.) The sons of Eh, — 
who had turned the tabernacle into'a house of ill fame, and a den of © 
thieves, had personally deserved a judicial reprobation ; God therefore 
could justly give them up to a reprobate mind, in consequence of their — 
personal, avoidable, repeated, and aggravated crimes. (2.) The word 
“ killing” does not here necessarily imply eternal damnation. The Lord © 
killed, by a hon, the man of God from Judah, for having stopped in 
Bethel: he killed Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire: he killed — 
the child of David and Bathsheba: he killed many of the Corinthians, 
for their irreverent partaking of the Lord’s Supper: but the “ sin unto ~ 
[bodily] death” is not the sin unto eternal death. For St. Paul informs” 
us that the body is sometimes “ given up to Satan for the destruction of 
the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord,” 1 Cor. 
v, 5. (3.) The Hebrew particle »2, which is rendered in our translation 
“ because,” means also “ therefore :” and so our translators themselves 
have rendered it after St. Paul, and the Septuagint, Psa. exyi, 10, 
“I believed, », and therefore will I speak :” see 2 Cor. iy, 13. If they 
had done their part as well in translating the verse quoted by Mr. © 
Toplady, the doctrines of free wrath would have gone propless ; and we — 
should have had these edifying words : “ They [the sons of Eli] hearkened 
not to the voice of their father; and rHeREFor:E the Lord would slay 
them.” ‘Thus the voluntary sin of free agents would be represented as 
the cause of their deserved reprobation; and not their undeserved 
reprobation as the cause of their necessary sin. (See sec. il.) 

Arc. XLI. Page 51. Mr. T. tries to prove absolute reprobation by 
quoting these words of our Lord: “ Thou Capernaum, which art exalted 
to heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty works which ~ 
have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would [or might] haye 
remained unto this day.” 

This passage, if J am not mistaken, is nothing but a strong expostula- 
tion and reproof, admirably calculated to shame the unbelief and alarm 
the fears of the Capernaites. Suppose I had an enemy, whose obstinate — 
hatred had resisted for years the constant tokens of my love ; and suppose ~ 
I said to him, “ Your obduracy is astonishing; if I had shown to the 
fiercest tiger the kindness which I have shown you, I could have melted — 
the savage beast into love ;” would it be right, from such a figurative 
supposition, to conclude that I absolutely believed I could haye tamed 
the fiercest tiger ? 

But this passage, taken in a literal sense, far from proving the absolute 
_ Teprobation of Sodom, demonstrates that Sodom was never reprobated in 
the Calvinian sense of the word : for if it had been absolutely reprobated 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. © 449 


from all eternity, no works done in her by Christ and his apostles could 
have overcome her unbelief. But our Lord observes that her strong 
unbelief could have been overcome by the extraordinary means of faith, 
which could not conquer the unbelief of Capernaum. Mr. T. goes on :— 

Are. XLII. (Jbid.) “ But though God knew the citizens of Sodom 
would [or might] have reformed their conduct, had his providence made 
use of effectual [Mr. T. should say of every effectual] means to that end ; 
still these effectual [Mr. T. should say, all these extraordinary and 
peculiar| means were not vouchsafed.” True: because, according to 
the election of grace, God uses more means and more powerful means to 
conyert some cities than he does to convert others: witness the case of 
Nineveh, compared with that of Jericho. ‘This is strongly maintained 
in my Essay on the Partial Reprobation of Distinguishing Grace, where 
this very passage is produced. But still we affirm two things: (1.) God 
always uses means sufficient to demonstrate that his goodness, patience, 
and mercy, are over all his works, (though in different degrees,) and to 
testify that he is unwilling that sinners should die, unless they have first 
obstinately, and without necessity, refused to “ work out their own eternal 
salvation” with the talent of temporary salvation, which is given to all, 
for the sake of Him whose “ saving grace has appeared to all men,” and 
who “enlightens [in various degrees] every man that comes into the 
world.” (2.) As the men of Sodom were not absolutely lost, though 
they had but one talent of means, no more were the men of Capernaum 
absolutely saved, though God favoured them with so many more talents 
of means than he did the menof Sodom. Hence it appears that Mr. T. 
has run upon the point of his own sword; the passage which he appeals 
to proving that God does not work so irresistibly upon either Jews or 
Gentiles as to secure his absolute approbation of some, and his absolute 
reprobation of others. 

Arc. XLII. Page 52. Mr. T., to prop up Calvyinian reprobation, 
quotes these words of Christ : “ Fill ye up the measure of your fathers,” 
Matt. xxiii, 32, and he takes care to produce the words, “ Fill ye up,” 
in capitals ; as if he would give us to understand that Christ is extremely 
busy in getting reprobates to sin and be damned. For my part, as 
I believe that Christ never preached up sin and wickedness, I am per- 
suaded that this expression is nothing but a strong, zronical reproof of 
sin, like that in the Revelation, « Let him that is unjust, be unjust still ;’ 
or that in the Gospel, “Sleep on now and take your rest;” or that in 
the book of Ecclesiastes, “ Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and 
walk in the ways of thy heart, &c, but know,” &c. I shudder when I 
consider “doctrines of grace,” so called, which support themselves by 
representing Christ as a preacher of wickedness. Calvinism may be 
compared to that insect which feeds on putrefying carcasses, lights only 
upon real or apparent sores, and delights chiefly in the smell of cor- 


_ ruption. If there be a fault in our translation, Calvinism will pass over 


a hundred plain passages well translated, and will eagerly light upon the 
error. ‘Thus, pp. 53 and 57, Mr. Toplady quotes, “being disobedient, 
whereunto they were appointed,” 1 Pet. u, 8. He had rather take it 


for granted that the God of Manes absolutely predestinates some people 
to be disobedient, than do the holy God the justice to admit this godly © 


sense, which the original bears, “ Being disobedient, whereunto they 
Vou. Il. 29 ‘ 


450 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 4 


have set, or disposed themselves.” (See the proofs, Scales, pages 
78, 104.) «4 

Are. XLIV. Page 52. Mr. T., still pleading for the “horrible — 
decree” of Calvinian reprobation, says, “St. Matthew, if possible, 
expresses it still.more strongly: ‘It is given unto you to know the 
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but to them it is not given,’ Matt. 
xiii, 11.” I answer: (1.) If by “the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven,” you understand the mysteries of Christianity, it is absurd to 
say that all who are not blessed with the knowledge of these mysteries 
are Calvinistically reprobated. This I demonstrate by verses 16, 17, 
and by the parallel place.in St. Luke: “ All things are delivered to me 
of my Father; and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father ; 
and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal 
him. [That is, the mystery of a relative personality of Father and Son 
in the Godhead has not been expressly revealed to others, as I choose 
to reveal it to you, my Christian friends :] and [to show that this was 
his meaning] he turned him unto his disciples, and said, privately, 
Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see: for I tell 
you that many prophets [such as Samuel, Isaiah, Daniel, &c,] and 
kings [such as David, Solomon, Josiah, Hezekiah, &c, St. Matthew 
adds, ‘and righteous men,’ such as Noah; Abraham, &c,] have desired 
to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear 
the things which ye hear, and have not heard them,” Luke x, 22-24; 
Matt. xii, 17. Is not Mr. T. excessively fond of reprobating people to” 
death, if he supposes that because “it was not given to those prophets, — 
kings, and righteous men, to know the mysteries of the” Christian dis. 
pensation, they were all absolutely doomed to continue im sin, and be 
damned ? 

But, (2.) Should it be asserted, that by “the mysteries of the king- 
dom,” we are to understand here every degree of saving light, then the 
reprobation mentioned in Matt. xii, 11, is not the partial reprobation of 
grace, but the impartial reprobation of justice: and, in this case, to 
‘appeal to this verse in support of a chimerical reprobation of free wrath, 
argues great inattention to the context ; for the very neat verse fixes the 
reason of the reprobation of the Jews, who heard the Gospel of Christ 
without being benefited by it: a reason this, which saps the foundation 
of absolute reprobation. “But unto them it is not given :” for they are 
Calvinistically reprobated! No: “Unto them it is not given: for, 
whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abun. 
dance : but whosoever hath mot, [to purpose] from him shall be taken — 
away, even that he hath,” Matt. xiii, 12. This anti-Calvinian sense is 
strongly confirmed by our Lord’s words two verses below: “To them — 
it is not given, &c, for this people’s heart is waxed gross: [NoTE: itis — 
waxed gross, therefore it was not so gross at first as it isnow :] and their — 
ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any — 
time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should 
understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should he: 
them,” Matt. xiii, 15. To produce, therefore, Matt. xiii, 11, as a capil 
proof of Calvinian reprobation, is as daring an imposition upon the cre. 
dulity of the simple, as to produce Exodus xx, in defence of adultery” 
and murder. Hewever, such arguments will not only be swallowed — 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 451 


down in Geneva as tolerable, but the author of P. O. will cry them up 
as “ most masterly.” 

Are. XLV. Page 53. Mr. T. concludes his Scripture proofs of 
Calvinian reprobation by these words : “ Now I leave it to the decision 
of any unprejudiced, capable man upon earth, whether it be not evident, 
from these passages, &c, that God hath determined to leave some men to 
perish in their sins and to be justly punished for them? In affirming 
which, I only give the scripture as I found it.” That the scriptures 
produced by Mr. T. prove this, is true; we maintain it as well as he: 
and if he will impose no other reprobation upon us, we are ready to 
shake hands with him. Nor needs he call his book, “ More Work for 
Mr. Wesley,” but, A Reconciliation with Mr. Wesley: for, when we 
speak of the reprobation of susricr, we assert that “God hath deter- 
mined to leave some men, [namely, the wise and prudent in their own 
eyes, the proud and disobedient, who do despite to the Spirit of grace to 
the end of their day of salvation] to perish in their sins, and to be justly 
punished for them.” But, according to Mr. T.’s system, the men “ left 
to perish in their sins,” are not the men whom the scriptures which he 
has quoted describe ; but poor creatures absolutely sentenced to neces- 
sary, remediless sin, and to unavoidable, eternal damnation, long before 
they had an existence in their mother’s womb. And, in this case, we 
affirm that their endless torments can never be just: and, of conse- 
quence, that the Calvinian reprobation of unborn men, which Mr. T. 
has tried to dress up in Scripture phrases, is as contrary to the Scripture 
reprobation of stubborn offenders, as Herod’s ordermg the barbarous 
destruction of the holy innocents, is different from his ordering the 
righteous execution of bloody murderers. 


SECTION VII. 


An answer to the arguments by which Mr. T. tries to reconcile Calvinism 
with the doctrine of a future judgment, and aBsoLuTE necessity with 
MORAL agency. 


Turvy who indirectly set aside the day of judgment, do the cause of 
religion as much mischief as they who indirectly set aside the immor- 
tality of the soul. Mr. Wesley asserts that the Calvinists are the men. 
His words are: “On the principle of absolute predestination, there can 
be no future judgment. It requires more pains than all the men upon 
earth, than all the devils in hell will ever be able to take, to reconcile 
the doctrine of [Calvinian] reprobation, with the doctrine of a judgment 
day.” Mr. 'T. answers :— 

Arc. XLVI. Page 82. “The consequence is false; for absolute 
predestination is the very thing that renders the future judgment certain : 
‘God hath arrornrep a day in which he will judge the world in right- 


| .eousness by the man whom he hath orparnep,’” If Mr. T. had put 


__ the words ‘‘in righteousness” in capitals, instead of the words “appointed” 
sand “ ordained,” (which he fondly hopes will convey the idea of the 
Calvinian decrees,) he would have touched the knot of the difficulty: 
for the question is not, whether there will be a day of judgment; but 


452 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


whether, on the principle of absolute predestination, there can be a = > 
of judgment, consistently with Divine equity, justice, wisdom, and sin- — 
cerity: and that there can, Mr. ‘I’. attempts to prove by the following 
reasoning :— 

Arc. XLVII. Page 83. “The most flagrant sinners sin voluntarily, 
notwithstanding the znevitable accomplishment of God’s effective and 
permissive decrees.” Now they who sin voluntarily are accountable: 
and accountable sinners are judicable: and if judicable, they are — 
punishable.” 

Mr. T. has told us, p. 45, that “fallen men are involuntary beings ;” 
and in this page he tells us that they sin voluntarily. Now we, who 
never learned Mr. T.’s logic, cannot understand how “ involuntary 
beings” can sin voluntarily. But, letting this contradiction pass, and 
granting that sinners offend voluntarily, I ask, Is their wild at hiberty to 
choose otherwise than it does, or is it not? If you say it is at liberty to — 
choose otherwise than it does, you renounce necessitating predestina- 
tion, and you will allow the doctrine of free will, which is the bulwark of 
the second Gospel axiom, and the Scripture engine which batters down 
Calvinian reprobation ; and, upon this Scriptural plan, it is most certain 
that God can “ judge the world in righteousness,” that is, in a manner 
which reflects praise upon his essential justice and wisdom. But if you 
insinuate that the will of sinners is absolutely bound by “ the efficacious 
purposes of Heaven,” and by the “effective decrees” of Him who 
“‘worketh all things in all men, and even wickedness in the wicked ;” 
if you say that God’s decree concerning every man is irreversible, whe- 
ther it be a decree of absolute election to life, or of absolute reprobation 
to death, “ because God’s own decree secures the means as well as the 
end, and accomplishes the end by the means ;” (p. 17;) or, which 
comes to the same thing, if you assert that the reprobate always sin 
necessarily, having no power, no liberty to will righteousness, you an- 
swer like a consistent Calvinist, and pour your shame, folly, and un- 
righteousness upon the tribunal where Christ will judge the world in 
righteousness. 

A just illustration will convince the unprejudiced reader, that this is 
really the case. "By the king’s “efficacious permission,” a certain 
strong man, called Adam, binds the hands of a thousand children behind 
their backs with a chain of brass, and a strong lock, of which the king - 
himself keeps the key. When the children are thus chained, the king 
commands them all, upon pain of death, to put their hands upon their 
breasts, and promises ample rewards to those who will do it. Now, as 
the king is absolute, he passes by seven hundred of the bound children, 
and as he passes them by he hangs about their necks a black stone, witk 
this inscription, “ Unconditional reprobation to death :” but being merei- 
ful too, he graciously fixes his love upon the rest of the children, just 
three hundred in number, and he ordains them to finished salvation by 
hanging about their necks a white stone, with this inscription, “ Uncon- 
ditional election to life.” And, that they may not miss their reward by 
non-performance of the above-mentioned condition, he gives the key of 
the locks to another strong man, named Christ, who, in a day of irre- 
sistible power, looses the hands of the three hundred elect children, and 


chains them upon their breasts, as strongly as they were before chained 
. 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. ; 453 


behind their backs. When all the elect are properly bound, agreeably 
to orders, the king proceeds to ‘judge the children according to their 
works, that is, according to their having put their hands behind their 
backs, or upon their breasts. In the meantime a question arises in the 
court: Can the king judge the children concerning the position of their 
hands, without rendering himself ridiculous? Can he wisely reward the 
elect favourites with life according to their works, when he has abso- 
lutely done the rewardable work for them by the stronger man? And 
can he justly punish the reprobate with eternal death, for not putting 
their hands upon their breasts, when the strong man has, according to 
a royal decree, absolutely bound them behind their backs? “Yes, he 
can;” says a counsellor, who has learned logic in mystic Geneva; “ for 
the children have hands, notwithstanding the inevitable accomplishment 
of the king’s effective and permissive decrees: now children who have 
hands, and do not place them as they are bid, are accountable, and’ac- 
countable children are judicable ; and if judicable, they are punishable.” 
This argument would be excellent, if the counsellor did not speak of 
hands which are absolutely tied. But it-is not barely the having hands, 
but the having hands free, which makes us accountable for not placing 
them properly. 

Apply this plain observation to the case in hand, and you will see, 
(1.) That it is not barely the having a will, but the having free will, 
which constitutes us accountable, judicable, and punishable. (2.) That, 
of consequence, Mr. Toplady’s grand argument is as inconclusive as 
that of the counsellor. (3.) That both arguments are as contrary to 
good sense, as the state of hands at liberty is contrary to the state of 
hands absolutely tied ; as contrary to reason, as free will is contrary to 
a will absolutely bound. And, (4.) That, of consequence, the doctrine 
of the day of judgment is as incompatible with Calvinian predestination, 
as sense with nonsense, and Christ with Belial. 

However, if Mr. T. cannot carry his point by reason, he will do it by 
Scripture ; and therefore he raises such an argument as this:—We 
often read in the Bible that there will be a day of judgment; we often 
meet also in the Bible with the words “must” and “necessity ;” and, 
therefore, according to the Bible, the doctrine of a day of judgment is 
consistent with the doctrine of the absolute necessity of human actions : 

just as if, in a thousand cases, a decree of necessity, or a must, were not 
as different from absolute necessity, as the want of an apartment in the 
king’s palace is different from the absolute want of a room in any house 
in the kingdom. The absurdity of this argument will be better under- 
stood by considering the passages whiclt Mr. T. produces, to prove that 
when men do good or evil, God’s absolute decree of predestination ne- 
cessitates them to doit. 

Arc. XLVIII. Page 60. “Jt must needs be that offences come. 
There must be heresies among you. Such things [wars, &c,] must needs 
be.” When Mr. 'T. builds Calvinian necessity upon these scriptures, he 

_is as much mistaken as if he fancied that Mr. Wesley and I were fatal- 
ists, because we say, “Considering the course and wickedness of the 
world, it cannot but be Christendom will be distracted by heresies, law- 
suits, wars, and murders : for so long as men wiil follow worldly maxims, 
rather than evangelical precepts, such things must come to pass,” 


454 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


Again :—Would not the reader think that I trifled, if I attempted te — 
prove absolute necessity from such Scriptural expressions as these : 
“Seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. New wine must be put 


into new bottles. He must needs go through Samaria. Ihave bought — 


a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. How can I sin 
against God? I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. 
The multitude must needs come together [to mob Paul,] (Acts xxi, 22.) 
A bishop must be blameless. Ye must needs be subject [to rulers] not 
only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake ?” 

Once more: who does not see that there is what the poverty of lan 
guage obliges me to call, (1.) A necessity of duty: “I must pay my 
debts: I must preach next Sunday.” (2.) A necessity of civility: “I 
must pay such a visit.” (3.) A necessity of circumstance: “in going 
from Jerusalem to Galilee, ‘I must needs pass through Samaria,’ 


because the high way lies directly through Samaria.” (4.) A necessity 


of convenience: “I am tired with writing, I must leave off.” (5.) A 
necessity of decency: “I must not go naked.” (6.) A necessity of pru- 
dence: ‘I must look before I leap, &c.” Now, all these sorts of neces- 
sity, and a hundred more of the like stamp, do not amount to one single 
grain of Calvinian, absolute, insuperable necessity. However, a rigid 
Predestinarian (such is the force of prejudice !) sees his imaginary neces- 
sity in almost every must; just as a jealous man sees adultery in almost 
every look which his virtuous wife casts upon the man whom he fancies 
to be his rival. 

Are. XLIX. Page 61. “Absolute necessity, then, is perfectly con- 
sistent with willingness and freedom in good agency, no less than in 
bad. For it is a true maxim, Ubi voluntas, ibi libertas ;” that is, where 
there is a will, there is liberty. ‘This maxim, which has led many 
good men into Calvinism, I have already exposed. (See Scales, page 
186.) To what is there advanced, I add the following remark :—As 
there may be liberty, where there is not a will, so there may be a will, 
where there is not liberty. The first idle school boy whom you meet 
will convince you of it. I ask him, “ When you are at school, and have 
a will, or (as you call it) a mind to go and play, have you liberty, or 
freedom to do it?” He answers, “No.” Here is then @ will without 
liberty. ask him again: “ When you are at school, where you have 
freedom or liberty to ply your book, have you a will to do it?” He 
honestly answers, “No,” again. Here is then liberty without a will. 
How false therefore is this proposition, that “ where there is a will there 
is liberty!” Did judicious Calvinists consider this, they would no more 
say, “If all men were redeemed, they would all come out of the 
dungeon of sin.” For there may be a freedom to come out consequent 
upon redemption, where there is no will exercised. “O, but God 
makes us willing in the day of his power.” ‘True: in the day of 
salvation he restores to us the faculty of choosing moral good with some 
degree of ease ; and, from time to time, he peculiarly helps us to make 
acts of willingness. But to suppose that he absolutely wills for us, is as 
absurd as to say, that when, after a quinsy, his gracious providence 
restores us a degree of liberty to swallow, he necessitates us to eat and 
drink, or actually swallows for us. 

rem L. Page 61. In his refusal to dismiss the Israelites, &c, 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 458° 


“he [Pharaoh] could will no otherwise than he did, Exod. vii, 3, 4.” 
Is not this a mistake? When Pharaoh considered, did he not alter his 
mind? Did he not say to Moses, “Be gone, and bless me also?” If 
Omnipotence had absolutely hardened him, could he have complied at 
last? Do the unchangeable decrees change as the will of Pharaoh 
changed ? 

Are. LI. Pages 61, 62. “So when Saul went home to Gibeah, it 
is said, ‘There went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had 
touched.’ In like manner, God is said to have ‘stirred up the spirit of 
Cyrus. Then rose up, &c, the Levites, with all them whose spirit God 
had raised up.’ Will any man say that these did not will freely, only 
because they willed necessarily ?” 

1. I (for one) say, that while they willed necessarily, (in the Calvinian 
sense of the word “necessary,”) they could not will freely in the moral 
sense of the word free. Mr. Toplady is not morally free to will, so Tong 
as he is absolutely bound to will one thing, any more than a man is 
free to look to the left, who is absolutely bound to look to the right, let 
the object he looks at engage his heart and eye ever so pleasingly. 
God’s Spirit prevents, accompanies, and follows us in every good thing : 
all our good works are “ begun, continued, and ended in him ;” but they 
are not necessary, in the Calvinian sense of the word. In moral cases, 
God does not absolutely necessitate us, though he may do it in prophetic 
and political cases. ‘Thus, he necessitated Balaam, when he blessed 
Israel by the mouth of that covetous prophet ; and thus he necessitated 
Balaam’s ass, when the dumb animal reproved his rider’s madness. 
But then, whatever we do under such necessitating impulses, will not be 
rewarded as our own work, any more than Balaam’s good prophecy, 
and his ass’ good reproof, were rewarded as their own works. 

2. From the above-mentioned passages, Mr. Toplady would make us 
believe, that upon the whole, the touches of God’s grace act necessarily 
like charms: but what says the stream of the Scriptures? God 
“touched the hearis” of all the Israelites, and stirred them up to faith: 
but the effect of that touch was so far from being absolutely forcible, 
that their hearts soon “started aside like a broken bow;” and, after 
having been “saved in Egypt through faith, they perished in the wilder- 
ness through unbelief.” “God gave King Saul a new heart ;” and yet 
Saul cast away the heavenly gift. “God gave Solomon a wise and 
understanding heart ;” and yet Solomon, in his old age, “made himself 
a foolish heart, darkened” by the love of heathenish women. God 
stirred up the heart of Peter to confess Christ, and to walk upon the 
sea; and yet, by and by, Peter sunk, cursed, swore, and denied his 
Lord. Awful demonstrations these, that, where Divine grace works 
most powerfully, when its first grand impulse is over, there is an end of 
the overbearing power; and the soul, returning to its free agency, 
chooses without necessity the good which constitutes her rewardable ; or 
the evil which constitutes her punishable. Of this Mr. Toplady himself 
produces a remarkable instance, 2 Cor. viii, 16, 17, “ Thanks be to 
God,” says the apostle, “ who put the same earnest care into the heart 
of Titus for you; of his own accord he went unto you.” 

If a gentleman, who delights to be in houses of ill fame, more tham 
in the house of God, sees, in a circle of ladies, one whom he suspects 


456 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


of being immodest, he singles her out as one that may suit his purpose: 
and to her he makes his bold addresses. I am sorry to observe that 
this is exactly the case with Calvinism unmasked. We find, in the 
Scriptures, a few places where God’s suffermg some men to do a lesser 
evil, in order to prevent, or to punish a greater evil, is expressed in a 
strong, figurative manner, which seems to ascribe sin to him, just as, in~ 
other places, jealousy, repentance, wrath, and fury, together with hands, — 
feet, ears, and a nose, are figuratively attributed to him. Now as popish 
idolatry screens herself behind these metaphors, so Calvinian Anti- 
nomianism perpetually singles out ‘hose metaphorical expressions which — 
seem to make God the author of sin. Accordingly,— 

Arc. LIT. Page 61, &c. Mr. Toplady produces these words of 
Joseph: “It was not you that sent me hither, but God ;” these words 
of David: “The Lord said to him, [Shimei,] Curse David ;” these 
words of the sacred historian: “ God had appointed to defeat the good — 
counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon 
Absalom ;” and these words of the prophet: “ Howbeit, he [the Assy- 
rian king, turned loose upon Israel to avenge God’s righteous quarrel 
with that hypocritical people] meaneth not so, neither does his heart 
think so: but it is in his heart to destroy ;” these words in the Revela- 
tion: “God hath put it into their hearts [the hearts of the kings who 
shall hate the mystic harlot and destroy her, and burn her with fire] to 
fulfil his will, and to agree, and to give their kingdom to the beast, till 
the words of God shall be fulfilled ;” and the words of Peter: “’They 
[the accomplishers of the crucifixion of Christ] were gathered together 
to do whatsoever God’s hand, and God’s counsel had predestinated to be 
done,” &c. 

With respect to the last text, if it be mghtly* translated, it is ex- 
plained by these words of Peter, Acts ii, 23: “ Christ was delivered by 
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God :” by his gracious 
“counsel,” that Christ should lay down his life as a ransom for all; 
and by his clear “ foreknowledge” of the disposition of the Jews to take 


* With Episcopius, and some other learned critics, I doubt it is not. Why 
should it not be read thus? Acts iv, 26-28, ‘‘ The rulers were gathered together 
against the Lord and against his Christ. For ofa truth against thy holy child 
Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, (both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gen- 
tiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,) for to do whatsoever thy 
hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.” By putting the clause 
‘“* Both Herod,” &c, ina parenthesis, you have this evangelical sense which gives 
no handle to the pleaders for sin: ‘‘ Both Herod and Pilate, &c, were gathered toge- 
ther against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed to do whatsoever 
thy hand and counsel determined before to be done.” I prefer this reading to the 
common one, for the following reasons: (1.) It is perfectly agreeable to the 
Greek ; and the peculiar construction of the sentence is expressive of the peculiar 
earnestness with which the apostles prayed. (2.) It is attended with no Manichean 
inconyeniency. (3.) It is more agreeable to the context: for if the sanhedrim 
was ‘gathered by God’s direction and decree,” in order to threaten the apostles, 
with what propriety could they say, verse 29, ‘‘ Now, Lord, behold their threaten- 
ings?” And, (4.) It is strongly supported by verse 30, where Peter (after having 
observed, verses 27, 28, according to our reading, that God had anointed his holy 
child Jesus to do all the miracles which he did on earth) prays, that now 
Christ 1s gone to heaven, the effects of this powerful anointing may continue, 
and “signs and wonders may still be done by the name of his holy child 
Jesus.” 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 457 


that precious life away. This passage then, and all those which Mr. T. 
has produced, or may yet produce, only prove :— 

(1.) That God foresees the evil which is in the hearts of the wicked, 
and their future steps in peculiar circumstances, with ten thousand times 
more clearness and certainty, than a good huntsmen foresees all the 
windings, doublings, and shifts of a hunted fox; and that be overrules 
their wicked counsels to the execution of his own wise and holy designs, 
as a good rider overrules the mad prancings-of a vicious horse, to the 
display of his perfect skill in horsemanship, and to the treading down of 
the enemy in a day of battle. (2.) That God “catches the wise in 
their own craftiness,” and that, to punish the wicked, he permits their 
wicked counsels to be defeated, and their best-concerted schemes to 
prove abortive. (3.) That he frequently tries the faith, and exercises 
the patience of good men, by letting loose the wicked upon them, as in 
the case of Job and of Christ. (4.) That he often punishes the wicked- 
ness of one man by letting loose upon him the wickedness of another; 
and that he frequently avenges himself of one wicked nation by letting 
loose upon it the wickedness of another nation. Thus he let Absalom 
and Shimei loose upon David. Thus a parable spoken by the Prophet 
‘Micaiah informs us that God, after having let a lying spirit loose upon 
Zedekiah, the false prophet, let Zedekiah loose upon wicked Ahab. 
Thus the Lord let loose the Philistines upon disobedient Israel, and the 
Romans upon the obdurate Jews, and their accursed city ; using those 
wicked heathen as his vindictive scourge, just as he used swarms of 
frogs and locusts when he punished rebellious Egypt with his plagues. 
’ (5.) That he sometimes let a wicked man loose upon himself, as in the 
case of Ahithophel, Nabal, and Judas, who became their own executioners. 
(6.) That, when wicked men are going to commit atrocious wickedness,’ 
he sometimes inclines their hearts so to relent, that they commit a less 
crime than they intended. For instance: when Joseph’s brethren were 
going to starve him to death, by providential circumstances God inclined’ 
their hearts to spare his life: thus instead of destroying him, they only 
sold him into Egypt. (7.) With respect to Rey. xvii, 17, the context, 
and the full stream of the Scripture require that it should be understood 
thus :—“ As God, by providential circumstances, which seemed to favour 
their worldly views, suffered wicked kings to agree, and give their king- 
dom unto the beast, to help the beast to execute God’s judgments upon 
corrupted Churches and wicked states; so he will peculiarly let those 
kings loose upon the whore, and they shall agree to hate her, and shall 
make her desolate and naked.” 

Upon the whole, it is contrary to all the rules of criticism, decency, 
and piety, to take advantage of the dark construction of a sentence, or 
to avail one’s self of a parable, a hyperbole, a bold metaphor, or an un- 
guarded saying of a good man, interwoven with the thread: of Scripture 
history, in order to make appear, (so far as Calvinism can,) that “ God 
worketh all things in all men, even wickedness in the wicked.” Such 
a method of wresting the oracles of God, to make them speak the lan- 
guage of Belial and Moloch, is as ungenerous, as our inferring from 
these words, “I do not condemn thee,” that Christ does not condemn 
adulterers, that Christianity encourages adultery, and that this single 
sentence, taken in a filthy, Antinomian sense, outweighs all the sermon 


458 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


upon the mount, as well as the holy meaning of the context: for these 
words being spoken to an adulteress, whom the magistrates had not con- 
demned to die, and whom the Pharisees wanted Christ to “ condemn to 
be stoned according to the law of Moses;” it is evident that our d’s 
words, when taken in connection with the context, carry this edifying 
meaning :—“I am come to act the part of a Saviour, and not that of a 
magistrate : if the magistrates have not ‘condemned thee to be stoned,’ 
neither do I condemn thee to that dreadful kind of death; avail thyself 
of thy undeserved reprieve : ‘ Go and’ repent, and evidence the sincerity 
of thy repentance by ‘sinning no more.’” Hence I conclude that all — 
the texts quoted by the fatalists prove that God necessitates men to sin” 
by his decrees, just as John viii, 11, proves that Christ countenances = 
filthy sin of adultery. 
Are. LIII. Page 64. Mr. T. thinks to demonstrate that the doctrine 
of the absolute necessity of all our actions, and consequently of all our 
sins is true, by producing “ St. Paul’s case as a preacher. * Though 
preach the Gospel I haye nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon 
me, yea, wo is me if I ‘preach not the Gospel,’ 1 Cor. ix, 16. Yet he 
preached the Gospel freely, &c; necessity, therefore, and freedom, 
are very good friends, notwithstanding all the efforts of Arminianism te 
set them at variance.” The apostle evidently speaks here of a necessity 
of precept on God’s part, and of duty on his own part: and such a necessity, — 
being perfectly consistent with the alternative of obedience or of disobe-— 
dience, is also perfectly consistent with freedom and with a day of judg. 
ment : and Mr. T. trifles when he speaks of “all the efforts of Arminianism, 
to set such a necessity at variance with freedom ;” for it is the distin- 
guishing glory of our doctrine to maintain both the freedom of the will, 
and the indispensable necessity of cordial obedience. But, in the name — 
of candour and common sense, I ask, What has a necessity of precept 
and duty to do with Calvinian necessity, which, in the day of God’s 
power, absolutely necessitates the elect to obey and the reprobate to dis- 
obey ; entirely debarring the former from the alternative of disobedience, — 
and the latter from the alternative of obedience? That the apostle, in the 
text before us, does not mean a Calyinian, absolute necessity, is evident — 
from the last clause of the verse, where he mentions the possibility of — 
his disobeying, and the punishment that awaited him in case of disobe- 
dience : “ Wo is me,” says he, “if I preach not the Gospel.” A necessity 
of precept was laid on Jonah to preach the Gospel to the Ninevites ; but 
THIs necessity was so far from Calvinistically binding him to preach, that, — 
(like Demas and the clergy, who fleece a flock which they do not feed,) 
he ran away from his appointed work, and incurred the “ wo” mentioned — 
by the apostle. Therefore, St. Paul’s words, candidly taken together, — 
far from establishing absolute necessity, which admits of no alternative + 
are evidently subversive of this dangerous error, which exculpates the _ 
sinner, and makes God the author al sin. * 
Hence Mr. Wesley says, with great truth, that if the doctrines of 
absolute predestination and Calvinian necessity are true, there can be 
no sin; seeing “it cannot be a sin in a spark to rise, or in astone to 
fall.” And therefore “the reprobate [tending to evil by the irresistible _ 
power of Divine predestination, as unavoidably as stones tend to the © 
centre, by the irresistible force of natural gravitation] can have no sin 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 459 


at all.” This is a just observation, taken from the absurdity of an 
absolute necessity, originally brought on by God’s absolute and irresisti 
ble decrees. Let us see how Mr. T. shows his wit on this occasion. 

Are. LIV. Pages 71, 72. “The reprobate can have no sin at all. 
Indeed? ‘They are quite sinless, are they? As perfect as Mr. Wesley 
himself? O excellent reprobation! &c. What then must the elect be? 
&ec. Beside: if reprobates be sinless—nay, immutably perfect, so that 
_ they can have no sin at ail, will it not follow that Mr. Wesley’s own 
perfectionists are reprobates? For surely if reprobates may be sinless, 
the sinless may be reprobates. Did not Mr. John’s malice outrun his 
craft, when he advanced an objection, &c, so easily retortible ?” 

This illogical, not to say illiberal answer, is of a piece with the chal- 
lenge, which the reader may see illustrated, at the end of sec. i, by my 
remarks upon a consequence as just as that of Mr. Wesley: for it is 
as evident that if the reprobate are “involuntary beings ;” beings abso- 
lutely necessitated by efficacious, irresistible predestination to act as 
they do; they are as really sinless, as a mountain of gold is really 
heavier than a handful of feathers. And Mr. Wesley may believe that 
both consequences are just, without believing either that “the wicked 
are sinless,” or that “there is a mountain of gold.” On what a slender 
foundation does Logica Genevensis rest her charges of craft and malice! 
And yet this foundation is as solid as that on which she raises her doc- 
trines of unscriptural grace and free wrath. But Mr. T. advances other 
arguments :— 

Are. LV. Pages 69,70. “The holy Baptist, without any ceremony 
or scruple, compared some of his unregenerate hearers to stones ; say- 
ing, ‘ God is able even of these stones to raise up children to Abraham, 
&e. Ye therefore, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, &c. 
They [the elect] shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts—in the day 
when I make up my jewels:’ now, unless I am vehemently mistaken, 
jewels are but another name for precious stones.” Hence the reader is 
given to understand that when Mr. Wesley opposes the doctrine of 
absolute necessity, by saying, that “it cannot be a sin in a stone to fall,” 
he turns “the Bible’s own artillery against itself, and gives us too much 
room to fear, that it is as natural to him to pervert, as it is for a stone 
to sink.” 

By such arguments as these, I could prove transubstantiation: for 
Christ said of a bit of bread, “This is my body.” Nay, I could prove 
any other absurdity: I could prove that Christ could not “think,” and 
that his disciples could not “ walk :” for he says, “I am the vine, and 
ye are the branches ;” and a vine can no more think, than branches can 
walk. I could prove that he was a “hen,” and the Jews “ chickens :” 
for he says that he “would have gathered them, as a hen gathers her 
chickens under her wings.” Nay, I could prove that Christ had no 
more hand in our redemption, than we are supposed by Calvinists to 
have in our conversion ; that his “ poor free will,” (to use Mr. Toplady’s 
expressions, page 70, with respect to us,) “had no employ,” that he was 
“absolutely passive, and that [redemption] is as totally the operation of 
[the Father] as the severing of stones from their native quarry, and the 
erecting them into an elegant building, are the effects of human agency.” 
If the astonished reader ask, How I can prove a proposition so subver- 


460 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


sive of the gratitude which we owe to Christ for our redemption? | 
reply, By the very same argument by which Mr. T. proves that we 
“ absolutely passive” in the work of conversion, and that “ conversion 
totally the operation of God :” that is, by producing passages where Chris 
is metaphorically called a “stone ;” and of these there are not a few 
“Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, [ lay in Zion a stone, a tried stone, 
precious corner stone, a sure foundation, Isa. xxviii, 16. Whosoeve 
shall fall on this stone, shall be broken ; but on whomsoeyer it shall 
it will grind him to powder, Matt. xxi, 34. The stone which the bui 
ers rejected is become the head of the corner, Acts iv, 11. To whon 
coming as to a living stone,” &c, 1 Pet. ii, 4. If to these texts we 
add those in which he is compared to a “ foundation,” to a “rock,” an 
to “jewels,” or precious “ stones,” I could demonstrate, (in the Calvinian 
way,) that Christ was once as “absolutely passive” in the work of our 
redemption as a stone. When I consider such arguments as these, | 
cannot help wondering at the gross impositions of Pagan, popish, and 
Calvinian doctors. I find myself again in the midst of Ovid’s Me 
morphoses. Jupiter, if we believe the poet, turned Niobe into a rock 
The tempter wanted Christ to turn a “stone” into “bread.”  Logiec 
Romana turns “bread” into Christ. But Logica Genevensis carries 
the bell; for she can, even without the hocus pocus of a massing priest, 
turn Christ into a stone. Mr. Toplady, far from recanting his argue 
ment a lapide, confirms it by the following :— 

Arc. LVI. Page 71. “A stone has the advantage of you: mans 
rebellious heart is, by nature, and so far as spiritual things are concerned, 
more intractable and unyielding than a stone itself. I may take up a 
stone, and throw it this way or that, and it obeys the impulse of my arm. 
Whereas, in the sinner’s heart, there is every species of hatred and 
opposition to God: nor can any thing, but omnipotent power, slay its 
enmity.” 

Iam glad Mr. T. vouchsafes, in this place, to grant that “ omnipo- 
tent power can slay the enmity.” I hope he will remember this con- 
cession, and no more turn from the Prince of life, and preach up the 
monster death, as the slayer of the enmity. But to come to the argu- 
ment : would Mr. T. think me in earnest, if I attempted to prove that a 
stone “had [once] the advantage” of him, with respect to getting learn- 
ing, and that there was more omnipotence required to make him a 
scholar, than to make the stone he stands upon fit to take a degree in 
the university? However, I shall attempt to do it: displaying my skill 
in orthodox logic, I personate the school master, who taught Mr. Top. 
lady grammar, and probably found him once at play, when he should 
have been at his book, and I say, “Indeed, master, a stone has the a 
vantage of you. A boy’s playful heart is by nature, so far as grammi 
is concerned, more intractable and unyielding than a stone itself.” [Now 
for the proof!] | “I may take up a stone, and throw it this way or that, : 
and it instantly, and without the least degree of resistance, obeys the im- 
pulse of my arm: whereas you resist my orders ; you run away from your 
book ; or you look off from it. In your playful heart there is every species 
of hatred and opposition to your accidence ; and therefore more power is 
required to make you a scholar, than to make that stone a grammarian.” 
Mr. Toplady’s “voluntary humility” claps this argument as excellent; but — 


<a. 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 461 


his good sense hisses it as absurd, and says with St. Paul, “ When | was 
a child, I spake as a child: but when I became a man, I put away 
childish things.” 

Arc. LVII. Page 71. Ah, but “God’s gracious promise to renew 
his people runs in this remarkable style :—I will take away the stony 
heart out of your flesh.” And does this prove Calvinian bound will, any 
more than these gracious commands to renew our own hearts prove 
Pelagian free will? “Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no 
more stiff necked. Make you a new heart and a new spirit. ‘Turn 
yourselves, and live ye.” Who does not see that the evangelical union 
of such passages gives birth to the Scripture doctrine of assisted free 
will, which stands at an equal distance from Calvinian necessity, and 
from Pelagian, self-sufficient exertion ? 

Are. LVIII. Page 73. But God “ worketh atx things according to 
the counsel of his own will, Eph. i, 11.” By putting the word “all” 
in very large capitals, Mr. 'T. seems willing to insinuate that God’s 


_ decree causes all things; and, of consequence, that God absolutely 


works the good actions of the righteous, and the bad deeds of the 
wicked. Whereas the apostle means only, that all the things which 
God works, he works them “according to the counsel of his own” most 


| wise, gracious, and righteous « will.” But the things which God works 


are, in many cases, as diiferent from the things which we work, as light 
is different from darkness. This passage, therefore, does not prove 
Calvinian necessity: for, when God made man “according to the 
counsel of his own will,” he made him a free agent, and “set before 
him life and death ;” bidding him choose life. Now, to include Adam’s 
eating of the forbidden fruit, and choosing death, among “the things 
which God worketh,” is to turn Manichee with a witness: it is to con- 
found Christ and Belial; the acts of God, and the deeds of sinners. It 
is to suppose (horrible to think !) that God will send the reprobates to 


hell for his own deeds; or, if you please, for what he has wrought 


absolutely in them, and by them, “ according to the counsel of his own 
necessitating will.” ‘This dreadful doctrine is that capital part of Cal. 
vinism which is called absolute predestination to death. If Mr. T. 
denies that it is the second pillar of his doctrine of grace, he may turn 
to section ii, where he will find his peculiar gospel “ upon its legs.” 

I hope I need say no more upon this head, to convince the unpreju- 
diced reader that Mr. T.’s arguments in favour of Calvinian necessity 
are frivolous, and that Mr. Wesley advances a glaring truth when he 
asserts that, on the principle of absolute predestination, there can be 
no future judgment, (upon any known principle of wisdom, equity, and 
justice,) and that it requires more pains than all rational creatures will 
be ever able to take, to reconcile the doctrine of (Calvinian) reproba- 
tion, with the doctrine of a judginent day. 


462 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S é 


SECTION VIII. 


An answer to the argument taken from God’s prescience, whereby J r 
Toplady tries to prove that the very crurury which Mr. Wesley 
charges on Boos. is really chargeable on the doctrine of general 
grace. 


Mr. Toplady is a spirited writer. He not only tries to reconcile | 
Calvinian reprobation with Divine mercy, but he attempts to retort upon 
us the charge of holding a cruel doctrine. 

Arc. LIX. Page 47. “ But what if, after all, that very cruelty whieh 
Mr. Wesley pretends to charge on Calvinism, be found really charge- 
able on Arminianism? TI pledge myself to prove this before I conclude 
this tract.” And, accordingly, pp. 86, 87, Mr. Toplady, after observing 
in his way that, according to Mr. Wesley’s doctrine, God offers+his 
grace to many who “ put it from them,” and gives it to many who “Tre- 
ceive it in vain,” and who, on this account are condemned; Mr. Top- 
lady, I say, sums up his argument in these words :—“If God knows 
that the offered grace will be rejected, it would be mercy to forbear the 
offer. Prove the contrary if you are able.” 

I have answered this objection at large, Scripture Scales, section vi. 
However, I shall say something upon it here. (1.) God’s perfec- 
tions shine in such a manner as not to eclipse one another. Wisdom, 
justice, mercy, and truth, are the adorable and ‘well-proportioned fea- 
tures of God’s moral face, if I may venture upon that expression. Now, 
if, in order to magnify his mercy, I thrust out his wisdom and justice, 
as I should do if I held a lawless, Calvinian election ; or if, in order to’ 
magnify his justice, I thrust out his mercy and wisdom, as I should do 
if I consistently held Calvinian reprobation ; should I not disfigure God’s 
moral face, as much as I should spoil Mr. Toplady’s natural face, if I 
swelled his eyes or cheeks to such a degree as to leave absolutely no 
room for his other features? The Calvinists forget, that as human” 
beauty does not consist in the monstrous bigness of one or two features, | 
but in the harmonious and symmetrical proportion of all; so Divine 
glory does not consist in displaying a mercy and a justice, which would 
absolutely swallow up each other, together with wisdom, holiness, and 
truth. This would, however, be an case, if God, after having wisely 
decreed to make free agents, in order to display his holiness, justice, 
and truth, by “judging them according to their works,” necessitated - 
them to be good or wicked, by decrees of absolute predestination to life - 
and heaven, or of absolute reprobation to hell and damnation. 

2. Do but allow that God made rational creatures in order to rul 
them as rational, namely, by laws adapted to their nature ; do but admit 
this truth, I say, which stands or falls with the Bible, and fs necessarily 
follows that such creatures were made with an eye to “a day of judg- 
ment :” and the moment this is granted, Mr, Toplady’s argument 
vanishes into smoke. For, supposing that God had displayed more 
mercy toward those who die in their sins, by forbearing to give them 
grace, and to offer them more grace ; or, in other words, supposing that 
God had shown the wicked more mercy, by showing them no mercy at 
all, (which, by the by, is a contradiction in terms,) yet such a merciless — 


.VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 463 


mercy (if I may use the expression) would have blackened his wisdom, 
overthrown his truth, and destroyed his justice. What a poor figure, 
for instance, would his justice have made among his other attributes, if 
Hie had said that he would judicially cast his unprofitable servants into 
outer darkness, for burying a talent which they never had, or for not 
receiving a Saviour who was always kept from them? And what 
rationals would not have wondered at a Governor who, after having 
made moral agents in order to rule them according to their free nature, 
and to judge them “ in righteousness according to their works,” should 
nevertheless show himself, (i.) so inconsistent as to rule them by effica- 
cious decrees, which should absolutely necessitate some of them to work 
iniquity, and others to work righteousness. (ii.) So unjust as to judge 
them according to the works which his own binding decrees had neces- 
sitated them to do. And, (iii.) So cruel and unwise as to punish them 
with eternal death, according to a sentence of absolute reprobation to 
death, or of absolute election to life, which he passed beforehand, without 
any respect to their works, thousands of years before most of them were 
born? - By what art could so strange a conduct have been reconciled 
with the titles of Lawgiver, and “Judge of all the earth,” which God 
assumes; or with his repeated declarations that justice and equity are 
the basis of his throne, and that, in point of judgment, his ways are 
perfectly equal ? 

If Mr. T. should try to vindicate so strange a proceeding, by saying 
that God could justly reprobate to eternal death myriads of unborn 
infants for the sin of Adam ; would he not make a bad matter worse, 
since, upon the plan of the absolute predestination of all events, Adam’s 
sin was necessarily brought about by the decree of the means, which 
decree, if Calvinism be true, God made in order to secure and accomplish 
the two grand decrees of the end, namely, the eternal decree of finished 
damnation by Adam, and the eternal decree of finished salvation by 
Christ ? 

The absurdity of Mr. Toplady’s argument may be placed in a clearer 
light by an illustration :—The king, to display his royal benevolence, 
equity, and justice ; to maintain good order in his army, and excite his 
troopers to military diligence, promises to give a reward to all the men 
of a regiment of light horse who shall ride so many miles without dis- 
mounting to plunder: and he engages himself to punish severely those 
who shall be guilty of that offence. He foresees, indeed, that many will 
slight his offered rewards, and incur his threatened punishment: never- 
theless, for the above-mentioned reasons, he proceeds. Some men are 
promoted, and others are punished. A Calvinist highly blames the king’s 
conduct. He says that his majesty would have shown himself more 
gracious, and would have asserted his sovereignty much better, if he had 
refused horses to the plunderers, and had punished them for lighting off 
horses which they never had: and that, on the other hand, it became his 
free grace to tie the rewardable dragoons fast to their saddles, and by 
this means to necessitate them to keep on horseback, and deserve the 
_ promised reward. Would not such a conduct have marked his majesty’s 
_ reputation with the stamp of disingenuity, cruelty, and folly? And yet, 
astonishing! because we do not approve of such a judicial distribution 
of the rewards of eternal life, and the punishments of eternal death, 


464 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S - 


Mr. Toplady fixes the charge of cruetry upon the Gospel which we 
preach! He goes on :— 

Arc. LX. Page 85. ‘“ According to Mr. Wesley’s own fandament 
principle of universal grace, grace itself, or the saving influence of 
Holy Spirit on the hearts of men, does and must become the ministration 
of eternal death to thousands and millions.” Page 89: “ Level therefore 
your tragical exclamations, about unmercifulness, at your own scheme, 
which truly and properly deserves them.” 

The flaw of this argument consists in the words * does and must,” 
which Mr. T. fF its in Italics. (1.) In the word “ does ;” it is a great 
mistake to say that, upon Mr. W.’s principles, grace itself does become 
the ministration of eternal death to any soul. -It is not for grace, but for 
the abuse or neglect of grace and its saving light, that men are condemned, 
“ This is the condemnation,” says Christ himself, “ that light [the light 
of grace] is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than 
light.” And St. Paul adds, that the “ grace of God, which bringeth 
salvation, hath [in different degrees] appeared to all men,” John ii, 19; 
Tit. ii, 11. There is no medium between condemning men for not using 
a talent of grace which they had, or for not using a talent of grace which 
they NeveR had. ‘The former sentiment, which is perfectly agreeable to 
reason, Scripture, and conscience, is that of Mr. Wesley; the latter 
sentiment, which contradicts one half of the Bible, shocks reason, and 
demolishes the doctrines of justice, is that of Mr. Toplady. (2.) When 
this gentleman says that God’s grace, upon Mr. Wesley’s principles, 
must become the ministration of death to millions, he advances as 
groundless a proposition as I would do if I said that the grace of creation, 
the grace of preservation, and the grace of a preached Gospel, absolutely 
destroy millions; because millions, by wilfully abusing their created and 
preserved powers, or by neglecting so great salvation as the Gospel brings, 
pull down upon themselves an unnecessary, and therefore a just destruc- 
tion. (3.) We oppose the doctrine of absolute necessity, or the Calvinian 
must, as being inseparable from Manicheism: and we assert that there 
is no needs must in the eternal death of any man, because Christ imparts 
a degree of temporary salvation to all, with power to obey, and a promise 
to bestow eternal salvation upon all that will obey. How ungenerous 
is it then to charge upon us the very doctrine which we detest, when it 
has no necessary connection with any of our principles! How irrational 
to say, that if our doctrine of grace be true, God’s grace must become 
the ministration of death to millions! Ten men have a mortal disorder: 
a physician prepares a sovereign remedy for them all: five take it 
properly, and recover; and five, who will not follow his prescriptions, 
die of their disorder. Now, who but a prejudiced person would infer” 
from thence that the physician’s sovereign remedy is “become the 
ministration of death” to the patients who die, because they would not 
take it? Is it right thus to confound a remedy with the obstinate neglect 
of it? A man wilfully starves himself to death with good food before 
him. I say that his wilfulness is the cause of his death : “ No,” ’ replies 
a decretist, “ it is the good food which you desire him to take.” ‘This 
absurd conclusion is all of a piece with that of Mr. Toplady. 

Are. LXI. Page 89. “The Arminian system represents the Father 
of mercies as offering grace to them, who, he knows, will only add sin 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 465 
. f 


to sin, and make themselves twofold more the children of hell by refusing 
it.” Indeed, it is not the Arminian system only that says this: (1.) All 
the Calvinists who allow that God gave angelic grace to angels, though 
he knew that many of them would fall from that grace, and would fall 
deeper than if they had fallen from a less exalted station. (2.) Jesus 
Christ who gave Judas the grace of apostleship, and represents God as 
giving, a pound to his servants who squander it, as well as to those who 
use it properly. And, (3.) Mr. Toplady himself, who (notwithstanding 


his . pee horror for so Scriptural a doctrine) dares not deny that 


gave the grace of creation to those who shall perish. Now the 
grace of creation implies spotless holiness; and if God could once 


graciously give spotless holiness to Judas in the lois of Adam, why 


could he not graciously restore to that apostle a degree of free agency 
to good, that he might be judged according to “ his own works,” and not 
according to Calyinian decrees of “ finished wickedness” and “ finished 
damnation” in Adam? But, (4.) What is still more surprising, Mr. T. 
himself, p. 51, quotes these words, which so abundantly decide the 
question: “ Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven [by the 
peculiar favours and Gospel privileges bestowed upon thee] shalt be 
breught down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in 
thee had been done in Sodom, it would haye remained unto this day,” 
Matt. xi, 23. Now, I ask, Why were these “ mighty works” done in 
Capernaum? Was it out of Jove—to bring Capernaum to repentance? 
Or, was it out of wrath—that it might be “ more tolerable in the day of 
judgment for Sodom than Capernaum?’ There is no medium: Mr. 
Toplady must recant this part of the Bible, and of his book ; er he must 
answer one of these two questions in the affirmative. If he say (as we 
do) that these “ mighty works,” which might have converted Tyre, Sidon, 
and Sodom, were primarily wrought to bring Capernaum to repentance, 
he gives up Calvinism, which stands or falls with the doctrine of necessi- 
tating means used in order to bring about a necessary end. If he say 
(as Calvinism does) that these mighty works were primarily wrought to 
sink Capernaum into hell—into a deeper hell than Sodom, because the 


end always shows what the means were used for; he runs upon the 


point of his own objection ; he pulls upon his doctrines of grace the very 
unmercifulness which he charges upon ours; and he shows, to every 
unprejudiced reader, that the difficulty arising from the prescience of 
God, with which the Calvinists think to demolish the doctrine of general 
grace, falls upon Calvinism with a double weight. Mr. Toplady is 


sensible that God could never have appeared good and just, unless the 


wicked had been absolutely inexcusable ; and that they could never have 
been inexcusable if God had condemned them for burying a talent of 
grace which they never had: and therefore Mr. T. tries to overthrow 
this easy solution of the difficulty by saying,— 

Are. LXII. Page 88. “Be it so,” that the wicked are made inez- 
cusable by a day of grace and temporary salvation, “ yet, surely, God 
can never be thought knowingly to render a man more inexcusable, by 
taking such measures as will certainly load him with accumulated con- 
demnation, out of mere love to that man?’ We grant it; and therefore 


we assert that it is not out of “ mere love” that God pats us in a gracious 


State of probation, or temporary salvation ; but out of wisdom, truth, and 
7... Il. 30 


A66 i ANSWER TO TOPLADY’s 


distributive justice, as well as out of mercy and love. If God, therefore, 
were endued with no other perfection than that of merciful love, we 

would give up the doctrine of judicial reprobation ; for a God devoid of © 
distributive justice could and would save all sinners in the Calvinian way, 
that is, with a salvation perfectly finished, without any of their works, 
But then he would neither judge them, nor bestow eternal salvation upon 
them by way of reward for their works, as the Scriptures say he will. 

O ! how much more reasonable and Scriptural is it to allow the doctri 
of free grace, and free will, established in the Scripture Scales ; and to. 
maintain the reprobation of justice—an avoidable reprobation this, which 
is perpetually asserted in the Gospel, and will leave the wicked entirely — 
inexcusable, and God perfectly righteous: how much better is it, I say, 
to hold such a reprobation, than ‘to admit Calvinian reprobation, which - 
renders the wicked excusable and pitiable, as being condemned for doing 
what Omnipotence necessitated them to do; a reprobation this, which 
stigmatizes Christ as a shuffler, for offering to all a salvation from which | 
most are absolutely debarred ; a cruel reprobation, which represents the 
Father of mercies as an unjust sovereign, who takes such measures as 
will wnavordably load myriads of unborn men with accumulated os 
demnation, out of free wrath to their unformed souls ! 

Should Mr. Toplady say, “That according to the Gospel which we 
preach, the wicked shall certainly be damned ; and therefore the differ. 
ence between us is but trifling after all; seeing the Calvinists assert 
that some men, namely, those who are eternally reprobated by Divine 
sovereignty, shall certainly and unavoidably be damned; and the anti. 
Calvinists say that some men, namely, those who are finally reprobated 
by Divine justice, shall be certainly though avoidably damned :” I 
reply, that, frivolous as the difference between these two doctrines may 
appear to those who judge according to the apPEARANCE of words, it is” 
as capital as the difference between avoidable ruin and wnavoidable 
destruction ; between justice and injustice ; between initial election and 
finished reprobation ; between saying that Gop is the first cause of the 
damnation of the wicked, and asserting that THey are the first cause 
of their own damnation. In a word, it is as great as the differe: 
between the north and the south ; between a Gospel made up of A 
nomian free grace and barbarian free wrath, and a Gospel made up 
Scriptural free grace, and impartial, retributive justice. 

Upon the whole, from the preceding answers it is evident, if I am not 
mistaken, that, though the grand Calvinian objection, taken from 
foreknowledge, may, at first sight, puzzle the simple; yet it can b 
neither the light of Scripture, nor that of reason; and it recoils : 
Calvinism, with all the force with which it is supposed to attack “1 
saving grace which has appeared to all men.” 


- 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 467 


SECTION IX. 


An answer to the charges of robbing the trinity, and encouraging Desm, 
which charges Mr. T. brings against the doctrine of the anti-Cal- 
vinists. 


Mr. T. thinks his cause so good, that he supposes himself able, not 
only to stand on the defensive, but also to attack the Gospel which we 
preach. From his Babel, therefore, (his strong tower of confusion,) he 
makes a bold sally, and charges us thus :— 

Are. LXIII. Page 91. “ Arminianism robs the Father of his - 
sovereignty.” This is a mistake: Arminianism dares not attribute to 
him the grim sovereignty of a Nero; but if it does not humbly allow 
him al] the sovereignty which Scripture and reason ascribe to him, so far 
it is wrong, and so far we oppose Pelagian Arminianism as well as 
Manichean Calvinism. It “ robs the Father of his decrees.” This isa 
mistake : it reverences all his righteous, Scriptural decrees; though it 
shudders at the thought of imputing to him unscriptural, Calvinian 
decrees, more wicked and absurd than the decrees of Nebuchadnezzar 
and Darius. It “robs the Father of his providence.” Another mis- 
take! Our doctrine only refuses to make God the author of sin, and to 
lead men to the Pagan error of fatalism, or to the Manichean error of 
a two-principled God, who absolutely works all things in all men, as a 
showman works all things in his puppets; fixing his necessary virtue on 
the good, and necessary wickedness on the wicked, to the subVersion of 
all the Divine perfections, and to the entire overthrow of the second 
Gospel axiom, of Christ’s tribunal, and of the wisdom and justice which 
the Scriptures ascribe to God, as “ Judge of the whole earth.” 

Are. LXIV. (Ibid.) “It [Arminianism] robs the Son of his efficacy 
as a Saviour.” Another mistake! It only dares not pour upon him 
the shame of being the absolute reprobater of myriads of unborn crea- 
tures, whose nature he assumed with a gracious design to be absolutely 
their temporary Saviour ; promising to prove their eternal Saviour upon 
Gospel terms: and, accordingly, he saves all mankind with a temporary 
salvation; and those who obey him with an eternal salvation. The 
‘erricacy of his blood is then complete, so far as he absolutely designed 
it should be. 

Arc. LXV. (Ibid.) “It [Arminianism] robs the Spirit of his efficacy 
as a Sanctifier.” By no means ; for it maintains that the Spirit, which 
is the grace and light of Christ, “enlightens every man that comes into 
the world,” and leads the worst of men to some temporary good, or at 
least restrains them from the commission of a thousand crimes. So far 
the Spirit’s grace is efficacious in all; and, if it is not completely and 
eternally efficacious in those who “harden their hearts, and by their 
wilful hardness treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of 
wrath,” it is because “the day of wrath,’ for which the wicked were* 


* All angels and men were primaRILy made to enjoy an “ accepted time,” and 
a temporary “‘ day of salvation.” Those angels and men, who know and improve 
their day of salvation, were seconpaRiLy made for the day of remunerative love, 
and for a kingdom “ prepared for them from the beginning of the world.” But 
those angels and men, who do not know and improve their day of salvation, were 
SECONDARILY made for ‘‘the day of retributive wrath,” and for the “fire prepared 
for the devil and his angels.” 


468 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’s ~ } 


secondarily made, is to be “the day of the righteous judgment of God 
who will render to every man according to his deeds,” Rom. ii, 5, 6: 
and not the day of the unrighteous judgment of Calvin, who (doctrinally} 
renders to every man according to a finished salvation in Christ, pro. 
ductive of necessary goodness; and according to a finished damnation 
in Adam, productive of remediless wickedness, and all its dreadful 
consequences. ~ 

Arc. LXVI. Page 92. Mr. Toplady produces a long quotation from 
Mr. Sloss, which, being divested of the verbose dress in which error 
generally appears, amounts to this plain abridged argument: “If the 
doctrine of Calvinian election be false, because all mankind are not the 
objecis of that election, and because all men have an equal right to the 
Divine favour, it follows that infidels are right when they say that the 
Jewish and the Christian revelations are false: for all mankind are not 
elected to the favour of having the Old and New Testament ; and there- 
fore Arminianism encourages infidelity.” 

This argument is good to convince Pelagian leyvellers that God is 
partial in the distribution of his talents, and that he indulges Jews and 
Christians with a holy, peculiar election and calling, of which those 
who never heard of the Bible are utterly deprived. I have myself made 
this remark in the Essay on the gratuitous election, and partial reproba- 
tion which St. Paul frequently preaches: but the argument does not 
affect, our anti-Calvinian Gospel. For, 1. Wx do not say that the 
Calvinian election is false, because it supposes that God is peculiarly 
gracious to some men; (for this we strongly assert, as well as the 
Calvinists ;) but because it supposes that God is so PECULIARLY gra- 
cious to some men, as to be ABSOLUTELY MERCILEss and unjust to all the 
rest of mankind. ¢ ’ 

2. That very revelation, which Mr. Sloss thinks we betray to the 
Deists, informs us, that though all men are not indulged with the peculiar 
blessings of Judaism and Christianity, yet they are all chosen and called 
to be righteous, at least, according to the covenants made with fallen 
Adam and spared Noah. Hence St. Peter says, that, “in every nation, 
he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness [according to his light, 
though it should be only the lowest degree of that light, which enlighte 
every man that cometh into the world] is accepted of him :” and St, Paul 
speaks of some “Gentiles, who, though they have not the law of Moses 
or the law of Christ, do by nature [in its state of imitial restoration 
through the seed of life given to fallen Adam in the promise] the things 
contained in the law, and 2re a law unto themselves ; showing the work 
of the law, written in their hearts.” Therefore, though there is a gra. 
tuitous election, which draws after it a gratuitous reprobation from the 
blessings peculiar to Judaism and Christianity; there is no Calyinian 
election, which draws after it a gratuitous reprobation from all saymg 
grace, and necessarily involves the greatest part of mankind in unayoid- — 
able damnation. Hence, if I mistake not, it appears that when Mr. Sloss 
charges us with “having contributed to the prevailing Deism of the 
present time, by furnishing the adversaries of Divine revelation with 
_ arguments against Christianity,” he (as well as Mr. Toplady) gratui- — 
tously imputes to our doctrine, what really belongs to Calvinism. For — 
there is a perfect agreement between the absolute necessity of events, 


ett ees Pras 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 469 


wh.ch is asserted by Calvinian bound willers; and that which is main- 

2d by Deistical fatalists: and it is well known that the horrors of the 
absufute reprobation which the Calvinists fancy they see in Romans ix, 
have tempted many moralists, who read that chapter with the reprobating 
glosses of Calvin and his followers, to bid adieu to revelation; it being 
impossible that a scheme of doctrine, which represents God as ‘the abso- 
lute reprobater of myriads of unborn infants, should have the Parent of 
good, and the God of love for its author. 


/ SECTION X. 


_ An answer to the arguments by which Mr. Toplady attempts to retort the 
charge of Antinomianism, and to show that Calvinism is more con- 
ducive to holiness than the opposite doctrine. 


Mr. Hut asserts that Mr. T. “retorts all our objections.upon 73 in 
a most masterly manner.” Let us see how he retorts the objection 
which we make to absolute predestination—a doctrine this, by which 
necessary holiness is imposed upon the elect, and necessary wickedness 
upon the reprobates. How the fixing unavoidable holiness upon a 
minority, and unavoidable wickedness upon a majority of mankind, is 
reconcilable with the glory of Divine holiness, Mr. Toplady informs us 
in the following argument :— 

Are. LXVII. Pages 93, 94. Calvinian* “election sures holiness 
to a very great part of mankind: whereas precarious grace, deriving all 
its efficaey from the caprice of free will, could not insure holiness to any 
one individual of the whole species.” Had Mr. T. stated the case pro- 
perly, he would have said, Calvinian election, which insures necessary 
holiness to a minority of mankind; and Calvinian reprobation, which 
imsures necessary wickedness to a majority of mankind, promote human 
sanctity more than the partial election of grace, which formerly afforded 
the Jews, and now affords the Christians abundant helps to be peculiarly 
holy under their dispensations of peculiar grace: yea, more than the 
impartial election of justice, which, under all the dispensations of Divine 
grace, “chooses the man that is godly ,? to rewards of grace and glory: 
and more than the reprobation of justice, which is extended to none but 
such as bury their talent of grace by wilful unbelief and voluntary dis- 
obedience. 

If Mr. T. had thus stated the case, according to his real sentiments 
and ours, every candid reader would have seen that our doctrines of 


* The author of A Letter to an Arminian Teacher, (a letter this which I have 
quoted in a preceding note,) advances the same argument in these words, p. 5: 
“The doctrine of eternal [he means Calvinian] election,” for we believe the right, 
godly, eternal election maintained in the Scriptures, ‘‘ concludes God more mer- 
ciful than the Arminian doctrine of supposed universal redemption, because that 
doctrine which absolutely ascertains the regeneration, effectually calling, the 
sanctification, &c, as well as the eternal salvation of an innumerable company, 
&c, Rev. vii, 9, must represent God more merciful than the Arminian scheme, . 
which cannot ascertain the eternal salvation of one man now living,” &c. As 
it is possible to kill two birds with one stone, I hope that my answer to Mr. Top 
lady will satisfy Mr. M’Gowan. 


470 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


grace are far more conducive to human sanctity than those of Calvin- 
{1.) Because Calvinism insures human sanctity to none of the elect: for 
a sanctity which 1s as necessary to a creature, as motion is to a moved 
puppet, is not the sanctity of a free agent ; and, of consequence, it is not 
_ human sanctity. (2.) Because Calvinism insures remediless wickedness — 
to all the reprobate, and remediless wickedness can never be “human 
sanctity.” » 

With respect to what Mr. T. says, that our doctrines of grace do 
‘not insure holiness to any one individual of the whole species ;” if by 
insured holiness, he means a certain salvation without any work of faith 
and labour of love, he is greatly mistaken: for our Gospel absolutely 
insures such a salvation, and of consequence infant holiness, to that 
numerous part of mankind who die in their infancy. Nay, it absolutely 
insures a seed of redeeming, sanctifying grace to all mankind, so long 
as the day of grace or initial salvation lasts ; for we maintain, as well as 
St. Paul, that “the free gift is come upon all men to justification of life,” 
Rom. v, 18; and we assert, as well as our Lord, that “of such [of 
infants] is the kingdom of heaven,” and therefore some capacity to enjoy 
it, which capacity we believe to be inseparably connected with a seed of 
holiness. Add to this, that our Gospel, as well as Calvinism, insures eter- _ 
nal salvation to all the adult who are “ faithful unto death.” According to — 
our doctrine, “these sheep shall never perish :” to these elect of justice, 
who “make their election of grace sure” by obedience, Christ “ gives 
eternal life” in the fullest sense of the word: and “none shall pluck 
them out of his hand.” If Mr. T. had placed our Gospel in this true 
light, his objection would have appeared as just as the rhodomontade of 
Goliah, when he was going to despatch David. * 

Arc. LXVIII. Page 94. Mr. T. tries to make up the Antinomian 
gap, by doing that which borders upon giving up Calvinism. “No man 
(says he) according to our system, has a right to look upon himself 
as elected, till sanctifying grace has converted him to faith and good 
works.” . 

This flimsy salvo has quieted the fears of many godly Calvinists, when 
the Antinomianism of their system stared them in the face. To show 
the absurdity of this evasion, I need only ask, Has not every man a right 
to believe truth? If I am absolutely elected to eternal life, while I com. 
mit adultery and murder, while I defile my father’s wife, and deny my 
Saviour with oaths and curses; why may not I believe it? Is there one — 
sentence of Scripture which commands me to believe a lie, or forbids 
me to believe the truth? “0, but you have no right to believe yourself 
elected, tiJ] sanctifying grace has converted you to faith and good works.” 
Then it follows, that, as an adult sinner, I am not elected to the reward 
of the inheritance, or to eternal life in glory, til 1 believe and do good 
works: or it follows that I have no right to believe the truth. If Mr. 
T. affirm that I have no right to believe the truth, he makes himself 
ridiculous before all the world: and if he say that I am not absolutely 
elected tll I am converted io faith and good works, it follows that every 
time I am perverted from faith and good works, I forfeit my election of 

‘justice. Thus, under the guidance of Mr. 'T. himself, I escape the fatal 
rock of Calvinian election, and find myself in the safe harbour of old, 
practical Christianity: “Ye know that no whoremonger, nor unclean 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 471 


person, nor covetous man, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ 
and of God: let no man deceive you with vain words.” For if I have 
no right to believe myself an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ, 
while I turn whoremonger ; it is evident that whoredom deprives me of 
my right; much more adultery and murder. Hence it appears that Mr. 
T. cannot prop up the Calvinian ark, but by flatly contradicting St. Paul, 
which is agiece of impiety; and by asserting that elect whoremongers 
have no right to believe the truth while they commit whoredom, which 
is a glaring absurdity. 

Are. LXIX. Page 95. After having made up the Antinomian gap, 
by giving up either Calvinian election, or the incontestable right which 
every man has to believe the truth, Mr. Toplady tries to retort the 
charge of Antinomianism upon our doctrines of grace; and he does it 


~ by producing one “Thomson, who, when he was in a fit of intemper- 


ance, if any one reminded him of the wrath of God, threatened against 
such courses, would answer, I am a child of the devil to-day; but T have 
free will ; and to-morrow I will make myself a child of God.” 

To this I answer : (1.) The man spoke like a person “in a fit of 
intemperance,” and there is no reasoning with such, any more than with 
madmen. But Dr. Crisp, when he*was sober, aediaas ihe pulpit too, 
could say, “ A believer may be assured of pardon as soon as he commits 
any sin, even adultery and murder. Sins are but scarescrows and bug- 
bears to frighten ignorant children, but men of understanding see they 
are counterfeit things:” and indeed it must be so, if, as Mr. Toplady 
tells us, Whatever is, is right, and necessarily flows from the pre- 
destinating will of Him who does all things well. 

2. This Thomson (as appears by his speech) was a rigid ee willer ; 
one who discarded the first Gospel axiom, and the doctrine of free grace ; 
and therefore his error does not aflect our Gospel. Nay, we oppose 
such free willers as much as we do the rigid bound willers who discard 
the second Gospel axiom, and the necessity of sincere obedience in 
order to our judicial justification, and eternal salvation. . 

3. If Thomson had been sober and reasonable, Mr. Wesley might 
easily have made up the pretended Antinomian gap of Arminianism five 
different ways: (1.) By showing him, that although free will may reject 
a good motion, yet it cannot raise one without free grace ; and there- 
fore, to say, “To-morrow I will make myself a child of God,” is as 
absurd in a man, as it would be in a woman,'to say, “To-morrow I 
will conceive alone.” It is as impious as to say, “'To-morrow I will abso- 


‘lutely command God, and he shall obey me.” (2.) By showing him 


his imminent danger, and the horror of his present state, which he him- 
self acknowledged when he said, “I am a child of the devil to-day.” 
(3.) By arguing the uncertain length of the day of salvation. Grace 
gives us no room to depend upon to-morrow ; its constant language being, 
“ Now is the accepted time.” (4.) By pressing the hardening nature 
of presumptuous sin. And, (5.) By displaying the terrors of just 
wrath, which frequently says, “Take the talent from him. Because ye 


‘refused, I will be avenged. I give thee up to thy own heart’s lusts, to a 


reprobate mind. Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee.”’, 
These are five rational and Scriptural ways of making up the supposed 
Antinomian gap of our Gospel. But if Mr. Thomson had been a Calvinist, 


472 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


and had said, like Mr. Fulsome, “I have had a call, and my election 1s 
safe: as my good works can add nothing to my finished salvation, so 
my bad works can take nothing from it. Satan may pound me, if he 
pleases ; but Jesus must replevy me. Let me wander where J will from 
God, Christ must fetch me back again. ‘The covenant is unconditionally 
ordered in all things and sure. All things work for good to the elect.” 
‘‘ And if all things,” says Mr. Hill, “ then their very sins and corruptions 
are included in the royal promise.” ‘“ Whoredom and drunkenness may 
hurt another, but they cannot hurt me. God will overrule sin for my 
good, and his glory. Whatsoever is, is right: for God worketh all 
things in all men, even wickedness in the wicked, and how much more 
in his elect,,who are his chosen instruments!” If Mr. Thomsen, I say, 
had been a Calvinist, and had thus stood his ground in the Antinomian 
gap, which Calvin, Dr. Crisp, Mr. Fulsome, Mr. Hill, and Mr. Toplady 
have made; who could reasonably have beaten him off? Do not all 
his conclusions flow from the doctrine of absolute election and finished 
salvation, as unavoidably as four is the result of two and two? 

Arc. LXX. Page 97. Mr. Toplady attempts again to stop up the 
Antinomian gap, which fatalism and Calvinian predestination make in 
practical religion. Calling to his assistance Zeno, the founder of the 
stoics, or rigid Predestinarians among the heathens, he says, “ Zeno one 
day thrashed his servant for pilfering. The fellow, knowing his master 
was a fatalist, thought to bring himself off by alleging that he was 
destined to steal, and therefore ought not to be beat for it. ‘You are 
destined to steal, are you? answered the philosopher; ‘then you are 
no less destined to be thrashed for it:’ and laid on some hearty blows 
extraordinary.” I do not wonder that Mr. Hill, in his Finishing Stroke, 
calls Mr. 'Toplady’s arguments “most masterly ;” for this argument of 
Zeno is yet more masterly than his own: “I shall not take the least 
notice of him, any more than, if I were travelling on the road, 1 would 
stop to lash, or even to order my footman to lash every little impertinent 
quadruped in a village, that should come out and bark at me.” Mr. 
Toplady, in the advertisement placed at the head of his pamphlet, repre- 
sents some of us as “ unworthy of even being pilloried in a preface, or 
flogged at a pamphlet’s tail:” we are now arrived at the tail of his 
pamphlet, in the body of which he has thought Mr. Wesley so highly 
worthy of his rod, as to “flog” him with the gratuity, absoluteness, 
mercy, and justice, which are peculiar to the reprobation defended 
through the whole performance. If seriousness did not become us, 
when we vindicate the injured attributes of “the Judge of all the 
earth,” I m ght be tempted to ask, with a smile, Has Mr. Toplady so 
worn out his rod in making “more work for Mr. Wesley,” that he is 
now obliged to borrow Zeno’s stick to finish the execution “at the 
pamphlet’s tail?” For my part, as I have no idea of rivetting orthodoxy 
upon my readers with a stick, and of solving the rational objections of 
my opponents by “laying on some hearty blows,” and so “ thrashing” 
them into conviction, or into silence, I own that Logica: Zenonis and 
Logica Genevensis beixg of a piece, either of them can easily beat me 
out of the field. Arguments a Japide are laughable; but I flee before 
arguments a baculo. However, in my retreat, J will venture to presen. 
Mr. Toplady with the following queries :— ° 


Ee ie i ee ee 


ee 


— 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 473 


If Zeno, in vindicating fatalism, could say to a thief, that he was 
absolutely predestinated to steal, and to be thrashed for stealing; is it 
not more than Mr. Toplady can say in vindication of Calvinism? For, 
upon his scheme, may not a man be absolutely predestinated not only to 
steal, but also to escape thrashing, and to ob‘ain salvation by stealing? 
Mr. Toplady is Mr. Hill’s second: and Mr. Hill, in his fourth letter, 
(where he shows the happy effects of sin,) tells the public and me, 
* Onesimus robbed Philemon his master; and fleeing from justice, was 
brought under Paul’s preaching, and converted.” Thus Zeno’s pre- 
destination failed, and with it Zeno’s argument: for robbery led not 
Onesimus to thrashing, but to conversion and glory, if we believe Mr. 
Hill. And if Mr. Fulsome is an elect person, why might he not be 
guilty of as fortunate a robbery? Why might not a similar decree 
“secure and accomplish the [same evangelical] end by the [same 
Antinomian] means?’ Mr. Toplady may prevail over us by “borrowing 
Zeno’s cane, and the whip of Mr. Hill’s lashing footman ; but his pen 
will never demonstrate, (1.) That Calvinism does not rationally lead 
all her admirers to the deepest mire of speculative Antimomianism. 
And, (2.) That when they are there, nothing can keep them from 
weltering in the dirt of practical Antinomianism, but a happy incon- 
sistence between their actions and their principles. 


SECTION XI. 


A caution against the tenet, WHATEVER Is, Is RIGHT: an Antinomian 
tenet this, which Mr. T. calls “a first principle of the Bible”—An 
answer to his challenge about finding a middle way between the Cal- 
vinian doctrine of providence, and the Aitheistical doctrine of chance. 


Wuarever the true God works, is undoubtedly right. But if the 
Deity absolutely works all things in all men, good and bad, it evidently 
follows, (1.) That the two-principled Deity preached by Manes is the 
true God. (2.) That the bad principle of this double Deity works 
wickedness in the wicked, as necessarily as the good principle works 
righteousness in the righteous. And, (3. ) That the original of wicked- 
ness being Divine, wickedness is as right as the Deity from whom it 
flows. Upon this horrid, Manichean scheme, who can wonder at Mr. 
Toplady saying :— 

. Are. LXXI. Page 96. «This is a first principle of the Bible, and 
of sound reason, that whatever is, is right, or will answer some great 
end, &c, in its relation to the whole.” Errors never more dangerous 
than when it looks a little like truth. But when it is imposed upon the 
simple as “ a first principle of the Bible and of sound reason,” it makes 
dreadful work. How conclusively will a rigid Predestinarian reason if 
he says, “ W hatever ts, is right ; and therefore sin is right. Again: it 
is wrong to hinder what is right: sin is right, and therefore it is wrong 
to hinder sin. Once more: we ought to do what is night; and there- 
fore we ought to commit sin.” Now, in opposition to Mr. Toplady’s 
first principle, I assert, as a “ first principle of reason,” that though it 


was night in God not absolutely to hinder sin, yet sin is always wrong. 


A474 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


“O! but God permitted it, and will get himself glory by displaying his 
vindictive justice in punishing it: for ‘the ministration of condemnation 
is glorious.’” This argument has deluded many a pious Calvinist. To 
overthrow it, I need only observe that “righteousness exceeds condemna- 
tion in glory !” 

In what respect is sin right? Can it be right in respect of God, if it 
brings him less glory than righteousness? Can it be right in respect of — 
man, if it brings temporal misery upon ALL, and eternal misery upon 
some? Can it be right in respect of the Adamic law, the law of Moses, 
or the law of Christ? Certainly no: for sin is equally the transgression 
of all these laws. “O! but it is right with respect to the evangelical 
promise.” By no means»: for the evangelical promise, vulgarly called 
the Gospel, testifies of Christ, the destroyer of sin, and offers us a — 
remedy against sin. Now, if sin were right, the Gospel which remedies 
it, and Christ who destroys it, would be wrong. I conelude, then, "that 
if sin be right, neither with respect of God, nor with respect of man; 
neither with regard to the law, nor with regard to the Gospel; it is right 
in no shape, it is wrong in every point of view. 

“ But why did God permit it?” Indeed, he never properly permitted 
it, unless Mr. Toplady, who does not scruple to call God “ the permitter 
of evil,” can prove, that to forbid, in the most solemn manner, and under 
the severest penalty, is the same thing as to permit. 

Should you say, Why did not God absolutely hinder sin? [I still 
answer, (1.) Because his wisdom saw that a world where free agents 
and necessary agents are mixed, is better (all things considered) than a 
world stocked with nothing but its necessary agents, i. e. creatures 
absolutely hindered from sinning. (2.) Because his distributive justice 
could be displayed no other way, than by the creation of accountable 
free agents, made with an eye to a day of judgment. (3.) Because it 
would be as absurd to necessitate free agents, as to bid free agents be, 
that they might not be free agents; as foolish as to form accountable 
creatures, that they might not be accountable. And, (4.) Because when 
God saw that the free agency of his creatures would introduce sin, he 
determined to overrule it, or remedy it in such a manner as would, upon — 
the whole, render this world, with all the voluntary evil, and voluntary 
good in it, better than a world of necessary agents, where nothing but 
necessary good would have been displayed: an inferior sort of good, 
this, which would no more have admitted of the exercise of God’s 
political wisdom and distributive justice, than the excellence of stones 
and fine flowers admits of laws, rewards, and punishments. 

Should the reader ask how far we may safely go to meet the truth — 
which borders most on»Mr. Toplady’s false principle, Whatever is, is 
right ? I answer, (1.) We may grant, nay, we ought to assert, that God — 
will get himself glory every way. Evangelical grace, and just wrath, 
minister to his praise, though not equally: and therefore God willeth — 
not primarily the death of his creatures. Punishment is his strange — 
work ; and he delights more in the exercise of his remunerative good- 
ness, than in the exercise of his vindictive justice. (2.) Hence it ap- — 
pears that the wrath of man, and the rage of the devil, will turn to 
God’s praise: but it is only to his inferior praise. For though the 
blessed will sing loud hallelujahs to Divine justice, when vaqgrance 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 475 


shall overtake the ungodly ; and though the consciences of the ungodly 


will give God glory, and testify that he is holy in ail his works, and 
righteous im all his vindictive ways; yet this glory will be only the 
glory of the mmistration of condemnation: a dispensation this, which 
is inferior to the dispensation of righteous mercy. Hence it appears 
that those who die in their sms would have brought more glory to God 
by choosing righteousness and life, than they do by choosing death m 
the errors of their ways. But still, this inferior praise, arising from the 
condemnation and punishment of ungodly free agents—this inferior 
praise, I say, mixed with the superior praise arising from the justifica- 


_ tion and rewards of godly free agents, will far exceed the praise which 


might have accrued to God from the unavoidable obedience and absurd 
rewards of necessitated agents, of angels and men absolutely bound to 
obey by a necessitating grace like that which rigid bound willers preach; 
wert We even to suppose that this forcible grace had Calvinistically 
caught aut rational creatures in a net of finished salvation, and had 
drawn them all to heaven, as irresistibly as “ Simon Peter drew the net 
to land full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three.” For before 
the Lawgiver and Judge of all the earth, the unnecessitated, voluntary 
goodness of ong angel, or one man, is more excellent than the necessary 
goodness of a world of creatures as unavoidably and passively virtuous, 
as a diamond is unavoidably and passively bright. 

Arc. LXXII. Page 96. With respect to the second part of Mr. 
Toplady’s doctrine, that whatever is, is right, because “it will answer 
some great end, &c, in its relation to the whole,” it is nothing but 
logical paint put on a false principle to cover its deformity: for error 
can imitate Jezebel, who laid natural paimt on her withered face to fill 
up her hideous wrinkles, and impose upon the spectators. I may per- 
haps prove it by an illustration. | want to demonstrate that cheating, 
extortion, litigiousness, breaking the peace, robberies, and murders, are 
all right, and I do it by asserting “that they answer some great ends in 
their relation to the whole ; for they employ the parliament in making 
laws to prevent, end, or punish them ; they afford business to all the 

magistrates, lawyers, sheriffs, constables, jailers, turnkeys, thief 


" catchers, and executioners in the kingdom: and when robbers and 


murderers are hanged, they reflect praise upon the government which 
extirpates them; they strike terror nto the wicked ; and their untimely, 
dreadful end, sets off the happiness of a virtuous course of life, and the 
bliss which crowns the death of the mghteous. Beside, many murderers 
and robbers have been brought to Christ for pardon and salvation, like 
the dying thief, who, by his robbery, had the good luck to meet Christ 
on the cross: so that his own gallows, as well as our Lord’s cross, 
proved the tree of life to that happy felon.” The mischievous absurdity 
of these pleas for the excellence of wickedness, puts me in mind of the 
arguments by which a greedy publican of my parish once exculpated 
himself, when I reproved him for encouraging tippling and drunkenness. 
« The more ale we sell,” said he, “the greater is the king’s,revenue. 
If it were not for us, the king could not live ; nor could he pay the fleet 
and army ; and if we had neither fleet nor army, we should soon fall 
into the hands of the French.” So “ great are the ends” which tippling 
“ answers in its relation to the whole” British empire, if we may believe 


476 * ANSWER TO TOPLADYS — 


a tapster, who pleads for drunkenness’ as plausibly as some good, muss 
taken men do for all manner of wickedness. h 

From the whole, if I am not mistaken, we may safely conclude, that 
though all God’s works are right, yet sin, the work of fallen angels and 
fallen men, is never right ; and that though the universe, with all its sin- 
fulness, is better than a sinless world necessitated to be sinless by the 
destruction of free agents; yet, as there is so much sin in the world, 
through the wrong use which free agents make of their powers, Mr. T. 
advances an unscriptural and irrational maxim, when he says that what. 
ever is, is right ; and he imposes upon us an Antinomian paradox, when 
he asserts that this dangerous maxim “is a first principle of the Bible, 
and of sound reason.” J repeat it: it was right in God to create free 
agents, to put them under a practicable law, and to determine to punish 
them according to their works, if they wantonly broke that law ; but it 
could never be right in free agents to break it, unless God had bound 
them to do it, by making Calvinian decrees necessarily productive of. 


sin and wickedness. And supposing God had forbid free agents to sin. 


by his law, and had necessitated (which is more than to enjoin) them to 
sin by Calvinian decrees; we desire Mr. T. to show how it could have 
been right in God to forbid sin by law, to necessitate men to sin by a 
decree, and to send them into eternal fire for not keeping a law which 
he had necessitated them to break. 

The reasonableness of this doctrine brings to my remembrance the 
boldness of Mr. T.’s challenge about the,Calvinian doctrine of provi- 
dence—a doctrine this, which asserts that God absolutely necessitates 
some men to sin and be damned. (See sec. ii.) 

Are. LXXII. Page 73. “Upon the plan of Mr. Wesley’s conse- 
quence, the wretch was not a fool, but wise, who said in his heart, 
There is no God. I defy the Pelagian to strike out a middle way 
between providence and chance,” that is, between chance and the Cal- 
vinian notions of a providence, which absolutely predestinates sin, and 
necessitates men and devils to commit it, &c. “ Why did the heathens 
themselves justly deem Epicurus an Atheist? Not because he denied 
the being of a God,,(for he asserted that,) but because he denied the 
agency of God’s universal providence.” 


From this quotation it is evident, (1.) That Mr. T. indirectly charges — 


us with holding an Epicurean, Atheistical doctrine about providence, 


because we abhor the doctrine of a predestination, which represents — 


God as the author of sin. And, (2.) That he defies or challenges us to 
point out a middle way between the Atheistical doctrine of chance, and 
the Calvinian doctrine of providence. This challenge is too important 


to be disregarded: an answer to this will conclude the argumentative — 


part of this tract. 
There are two opposite errors with respect to providence. The First 
is that of the Epicurean philosophers, who thought that God does not 


at all concern himself about our sins, but leaves us to go on as we © 


please, and as chance directs. 'The sxconp is that of the rigid Predes- 
tinarians, who imagine that God absolutely predestinates sin, and neces- 


sarily brings it about to accomplish his absolute decrees of eternally 


saving some men through Christ, and of eternally damning all the rest 
of mankind through Adam. Of these two erroneous sentiments, the 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. A717 


latter appears to us the worse; seeing it is better to represent God aa 
doing nothing, than to represent him as doing wickedness. The truth 
lies between these two opinions; God’s providence is peculiarly con- 
cerned about sin, but it does by no means necessarily bring it about. By 
this reasonable doctrine we answer Mr. T.’s challenge, and strike out 
the middle way between his error, and that of Epicurus. 

If you ask how far God’s providence is concerned about sin, we 
reply, that it is concerned about it four ways. First, In moratty hin- 
dering the internal commission of it before it is committed. Secondly. 
In provipenriaLyy hindering (at times) the external commission of it, 
when it has been intentionally committed. Thirdly, In making, bound- 
ing, and overruling it, while it is committed. And, Fourthly, In bring- 
ing about means of properly pardoning, or exemplarily punishing tt; 
after it has been committed. Dwell we a moment upon each of these 
particulars, 

1. Before sin is committed, Divine providence is engaged in morally 
hindering the internal commission of it. In order to this, God does two 
things: first, he forbids sin by natural, verbal, or written laws. And, 
secondly, he keeps up our powers of body and soul; enduing us with 
liberty, whereby we may abstain, like moral agents, from the commission 
of sin; furnishing us beside with a variety of motives and helps to 
resist every temptation to sin: a great variety this, which includes all 
God’s threatenmgs and promises; all his exhortations and warnings ; 
all the checks of our consciences, and the strivings of the Holy Spirit; 
all the counsels of good men and the exemplary punishments of the 
wicked, together with the tears and blood of Christ, and the other pe- 
culiar means of grace, which God has appomted to keep Christians 
from sin, and to strengthen them in the performance of their duty. 

2. When sin is committed in the intention, God frequently prevents 
the outward commission, or the ful] completion of it, by peculiar inter- 
positions of his providence. ‘Thus he hindered the men of Sodom from 
injuring Lot, by strikmg them with blindness: ke hindered Pharaoh from 
enslaving the Israelites, by drowning him in the Red Sea: he hindered 
Balaam from cursing Israel, by putting a bridle in his mouth: he hin. 
dered Jeroboam from hurting the prophet who came out of Judah, by 
drying up his royal hand, when he stretched it forth, saying, “ Lay hold 
on him :” he hindered Herod from destroying the holy child Jesus, by 
warning Joseph to flee into Egypt, &c, &c. The Scriptures, and the 
history of the world, are full of accounts of the ordinary and extraordi- 
nary interpositions of Divine Providence, respecting the detection of 
intended mischief, and the preservation of persons and states whom the 
wicked determined to destroy: and, to go no farther than England, the 
providential discovery of the gunpowder plot is as remarkable an instance 
as any, that God keeps a watchful eye upon the counsels of men, and 
confounds their devices whenever he pleases. 

3. During the commission of sin, God’s providence is engaged in 
marking it, in setting bounds to it, or in overruling it in a manner quite 
contrary to the expectation of sinners. When Joseph’s brethren con- 
trived the getting money by selling him into Egypt, God contrived the 
preservation of Jacob’s household.. Thus, when Haman contrived a 
gallows to hang Mordecai thereon, the Lord so overruled this cruel 


478 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 


design, that Haman was hung on that very gallows. Thus, when Satan 
wanted to destroy Job, God set bounds to his rage, and bid the fierce — 
accuser spare the good man’s life. That envious fiend did his worst to 
make the patient saint curse God to his face ; but the Lord so overruled 
his malice, that it worked for good to Job: for*when Job’s patience 
had had its perfect work, all his misfortunes ended in double prosperity, 
and all his tempestuous tossings raised him to a higher degree of per-— 
fection: for “the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of tempta- 
tion, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment,” 2 Pet. ii, 9. 
Thus, again, to preserve the seed of the righteous, God formerly kept 
one hundred prophets, and seven thousand true Israelites, from the — 
cruelty of Jezebel; and, for the sake of the sincere Christians in Ju- 
dea, he shortened the great tribulation spoken of, Matt. xxiv, 22. When — 
the ungodly are most busy in sinning, God’s providence is most employ- 
ed in counterworking their sin, in putting bounds to their desperate de- — 
signs, and in making “a way for the godly to escape out of temptation, 
that they may be able to bear it: for the rod of the ungodly cometh not 
[with its full force] into the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous put 
forth their hand unto iniquity,” through such powerful and lasting temp- 
tations, as would make it impossible for them to stand firm in the way 
of duty, Psa. exxv, 3. . 

4, When sin is actually committed, the providence of God, in con- 
junction with his mercy and justice, is employed, either in using means 
to bring sinners to repentance, confession, and pardon, or in inflicting 
upon them such punishments as seem most proper to Divine wisdom. 
To be convinced of it, read the history of man’s redemption by Jesus 
Christ. Mark the various steps by which Providence brings the guilty 
to conviction, the penitent to pardon, the finally impenitént to destrue- 
tion, and all to some degree of punishment. By what an amazing train — 
of providential dispensations were Joseph’s brethren, for instance; 
brought to remember, lament, and smart for their cruel behaviour to him ! 
And how did God, by various afHlictions, bring his rebellious people to 
consider their ways, and to humble themselves before him in the land 
of their captivity! What an amazing work had Divine Providence in 
checking and punishing the sin of Pharoah in Egypt ; that of the Israel- 
ites in the wilderness ; that of David and his house in Jerusalem; and 
that of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar in Babylon! 

Evangelically and providentially opening the way for the return of 
sinners, and repaying obdurate offenders to their face, make one half 
of God’s work, as he is the gracious and righteous Governor of men. 
We cannot doubt it, if we take notice of the innumerable means by 
which conversions and punishments are brought about. To touch only — 
upon punishments: some extend to the sea, others to the land: some 
spread over particular districts, others over whole kingdoms: some 
affect a whole family, and others a whole community: some affect the soul, 
and others the body :,some only fall upon one limb, or one of the senses, 
others upon the whole animal frame, and all the senses: some affect 
our well being, others our being itself: some are confined to this world, 
and others extend to a future state : some are of a temporal, and others © 
of an eternal nature. Now, since Providence, in subserviency to Divine 
justice, manages all these punishments, and their innumerable conse- 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 479 


quences, how mistaken is Mr. T. when he insinuates that our doctrine 
supposes God to be an idle spectator while sin is committed! 

5. With respect to the gracious tempers of the righteous, we believe 
that they all flow, (though without Calvinian necessity,) from “the free 
_ gift which is come upon all men, and from the light which enlightens 
every man that cometh into the world.” And as to their good works, 

we are so far from excluding Divine grace and providence, in order to 
- exalt absolute free will, that we assert, Not one good work would ever 
| be begun, continued, or ended, if Divine grace within us, and Divine 
Providence without us, did not animate our s@uls, support our bodies, 
help our infirmities, and (to use the language of our Church) “ prevent, 

accompany, and follow us” through the whole. And yet, in all moral, 
and in many natural actions, we are as free from the laws of Calvinian 
necessity, as from those of the great mogul. 

6. With regard to the families and kingdoms of this world, we assert 
that God’s providence either baffles, controls, or sets bounds to the bad 
designs of the wicked ; while it has the principal hand im succeeding the 
good designs of the righteous as often as they have any success: “ for, 
except the Lord keep the city,” as well as the watchman, “the watch- 
man waketh but in vain.” And with respect to the ccurse of nature, 
we believe that it is ordered by his unerring counsel. With a view to 
maintain order in the universe, his providential wisdom made admirable 
laws of attraction, repulsion, generation, fermentation, vegetation, and 
dissolution. And his providential power and watchfulness are, though 
without either labour or anxiety, continually engaged in conducting all 
things according to those laws; except, when on proper occasions, he 
suspends the influence of his own natural decrees; and then fire may 
cease to burn; iron to sink in water; and hungry lions to devour their 
helpless prey. Nay, at the beck of Omnipotence, a widow’s cruise of 
oil, and barrel of meal, shall be filled without the help of the olive tree, 
and the formality of a growing harvest; a dry rod shall suddenly blossom, 
and a green fig tree shall instantly be dried up; garments in daily use 
shall not wear out in forty years; a prophet shall live forty days with- 
out food ; the liquid waves shall afford a solid walk to a believing apostle; 
a fish shall bring back the piece of money which it had swallowed; 

and water shall be turned into wine without the gradual process of 
vegetation. 

If Mr. T. do us the justice to weigh these six observations upon 
the prodigious work, which God’s providence carries on in the moral, 
spiritual, and natural world, according to our doctrine ; we hope he will 
no more intimate that we Atheistically deny, or heretically defame that 
Divine attribute. 

To conclude: we exactly steer our course between rigid free willers, 

_ who suppose they are independent on God’s providence ; and rigid bound 
willers, who fancy they do notking but what fate or God’s providence 
absolutely binds them to do. We equally detest the error of Epicurus, 
and that of Mr. Toplady. The former taught that God took no notice 
of sin, the latter says that God, by efficacious permissions and irresistible 
decrees, absolutely necessitates men to commit it. But we maintain 
that although God never absolutely necessitated his creatures to sin, yet 
his providence a remarkably employed about sin, in all the above- 


480 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S 
* 


described ways. And if Mr. Toplady will call us defamers of Divin 
Providence, and Atheists, because we dare not represent God directly 
or indirectly as the author of sin; we rejoice in so honourable a reproach, 
and humbly trust that this, as well as all manner of similar eyil, is rashly 
said of us for righteousness’ sake. : 


SECTION XII. 4 


Some encouragements for those who, from a principle of conscience, bear 
their testimony agamst the Antinomian doctrine of Calvinian election, 
and the barbarous doctrine of Calvinian reprobation. } 


I numsty hope that I have, in the preceding pages, contended for the 
truth of the Gospel, and the honour of God’s perfections. My conscience 
bears me witness, that I have endeavoured to do it with the sincerity . 
of a candid inquirer after truth ; and I have not, knowingly, leaped over — 
one material difficulty, which Mr. 'T. has thrown in the way of the 
laborious divine, whose evangelical principles I vindicate. And now, 
judicious reader, as I have done my part as a detecter of the fala- 
cies by which the modern doctrines of grace are “kept upon their 
legs,” let me prevail upon thee to do thy part as a judge, and to say if 
the right leg of Calvinism (i. e. the lawless election of an unscriptural 
grace) so draws thy admiration as to make thee overlook the deformity 
of the left leg, i. e. the absurd, unholy, sin-insuring, hell-procuring, mer- 
ciless, and unjust reprobation which Mr. T. has attempted to vindicate. 
Shall thy reason, thy conscience, thy Bible—and (what is more than this) 
shall all the perfections of thy God, and the veracity of thy Saviour, be 
sacrificed on the altar of a reprobation which none of the prophets, apos- 
tles, and early fathers ever heard of? A barbarous reprobation, which 
heated Augustine drew from the horrible error of Manichean necessity, 
and clothed with some Scripture expressions detached from the context, 
and wrested from their original meaning? A Pharisaic reprobation which 
the Church of Rome took from him, and which some of our reformers un- 
happily brought from that corrupted society into the Protestant Churches? 
In a word, a reprobation which disgraces Christianity, when that holy 
religion is considered as a system of evangelical doctrine, as much as our 
most enormous crimes disgrace it, when it is considered as a system of 
pure morality? Shall such a system of reprobation, I say, find a place 
in thy creed? yea, among thy “doctrines of grace!” God forbid! — 

Dit mehora pus! erroremque hostibus illum! 1 hope better things 
of thy candour, good sense, and piety. If prejudice, human authority, 
and voluntary humility, seduce many good men into a profound reverence 
for that stupendous dogma, be not carried away by their number, or 
biassed by their shouts. Remember that all Israel, and good Aaron at 
their head, danced once round the golden calf; that deluded Solomon 
was seen bowing at the shrine of Ashtaroth, the abomination of the 
Sidonians ; that all our godly forefathers worshipped a consecrated wafer 
four hundred years ago ; that “all the world wandered after the beast ;” 
and that God’s chosen people “ went whoring after their own inventions, 
and once sacrificed their sons and their daughters to,deyi ” upon the — 


VINDICATION OF THE DECREES. 481 


altar of Moloch. Consider this, I say, and take courage: be not afraid 

to “be pilloried in a preface, flogged at a pamphlet’s tail,” and treated 

as a knaye, a felon, or a blasphemer, through the whole of the next 

Vindication of the deified Decrees,* which are commonly called Calvinism. 

This may be thy lot, if thou shouldst dare to bear thy plain testimony 
inst the Antinomian idol of the day. 

Nor say that thou,art not in Italy or Portugal; but in a Protestant 
land, a land of liberty—in England: for thou mightest meet with more 
mercy from reprobating priests in popish Naples than in orthodox Geneva. 
Being some years ago in the former of those cities, among the fine 
buildings which I viewed, one peculiarly drew my attention. It wasa 
towering monument, several stories high, erected by the Jesuits in honour 
of the Virgin Mary, whose image stood on the top of the elegant struc- 
ture. But what surprised me most was an Italian inscription engraven 
upon a stone of the monument, to this purpose; “ Pope Benedict the 
XIVth grants a plenary indulgence to all those who shall honour this 
holy image; with privilege to deliver one soul out of purgatory every 
time they shall pay their respects to this immaculate mother.” While 
1 copied this inscription in my pocket book, and dropped to my fellow 
traveller an innocent irony about the absurdity of this popish decree, two 
or three priests passed by ; they smelt out our heresy, looked displeased, 
but did not insult us. Mr. Wesley took, some years ago, a similar liberty 
with a literary monument, erected in mystic Geneva, to the honour of 
absolute reprobation. He smiled at the severity of Calvinian bigotry ; 
and not without reason, since popish bigotry kindly sends a soul out of 
purgatory if you reverence the black image which is pompously called 
the immaculate mother of God: whereas Calvinian bigotry indirectly 
sends to hell all those who shall not bow to the doctrinal image which 
she calls Divine sovereignty, upon as good grounds as some ancient 
devotees called the appetite of Bel [Baal] and the dragon Divine voracity. 
He [Mr. Wesley] added to his smile the publication of an ironical reproof. 
A gentleman who serves at the altar of absolute reprobation caught him 
in the fact, and said something about “ transmitting the criminal to Vir- 
ginia or Maryland,f if not to Tyburn.” But free wrath yielded to free 
grace. Calvinian mercy rejoiced over orthodox judgment. Mr. Wesley 
is spared. The vindicator “ of the doctrines of grace,” after “ rapping 
his knuckles,” “ pillorying him in a preface,” and “ flogging” him again 
and again in two pamphlets, and in a huge book, with a tenderness 
peculiar to the house of mercy, where popish reprobation checks Pro- 
testant heresy; the vindicator of Protestant reprobation, I say, has let 
the gray-headed heretic go with this gentle and civil reprimand, p. 10,:— 
“ Had I publicly distorted and defamed the decrees of God; [should it 
not be, Had I fairly held out to public view the absurdity of the imaginary 
decrees preached by Calvin 7] had I, moreover, advanced so many miles 
beyond boldness, as to lay those distortions and defamations at the door 
of another ; [should it not be, Had I, moreover, ironically asserted that 
monstrous consequences necessarily flow from monstrous premises ?] 
bold as I am affirmed to be, I could never have looked up afterward. 

* Mr. T. calls them the decrees of God, and it is an axiom among the Calvinists 
that “‘ God’s decrees are God himself.” 

+ See Mr. Toplady’s Letter to Mr. Wesley, p. 6. 

Vor. I. 31 


482 ANSWER TO TOPLADY’S VINDICATION, ETC. * 


1 should have thought every miscreant I met an honester man than 
myself. But Mr. John seems a perfect stranger to these feelings. His 
Murus aheneus [his brassy hardness] has been too long transferred from 
his conscience to his forehead. On the whole, &c, I had rather let the 
ancient offender pass unchastised, than soil my hands in the operation.” 
As Mr. Wesley is so kindly dismissed by Mr. Toplady, I must also 
dismiss thee, gentle reader, and leave thee to decide which is most likely 
to convert thee to Calvinian reprobation, Urbanitas or Logica Genevensis ; 
the courtesy of our opponents, or their arguments. 

In the meantime, if thou desire to know how near Calvinian election 
comes to the truth, and what is the reprobation which the Seriptures 
maintain, I refer thee to An Essay on the partial election of Grace, 
and on the impartial election of Justice.—A double essay this, that 
unfolds the difficulties in which prejudiced divines and system makers 
have for these fourteen-hundred years involved the fundamental doctrine 


of election ; and which, I flatter myself, will check party spirit, reconcile | 


judicious Protestants to one another, and give some useful hints to more 
respectable divines, who, in happier days, will exert themselves in the 
total extirpation of the errors which disgrace modern Christianity. 


5 


—— ee 


ell FO 


| 


: 


z 
{ 


THE 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


ON THE 


TWIN a EINES OF CHRISTIAN IMPERFECTION 


A DEATH PURGATORY. 


Be ye perfect. Every one that is perfect shall be as his Master. Ifthou wilt be perfect, go and 
sell that thou hast, and give to the poor—Jesus Christ. 

If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud.— St. Pawl. 

Let no man deceive you, &c. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might 
destroy the works of the devil. Herein is our love-made perfect, that we may have boldness 
in a = of jodemcnt; because as he [the vine] is, so are we [the branches] in this 
worid.—, 


ks 
: 
A POLEMICAL ESSAY 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 


PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK. 


Why the following tract is called “« The Last Check to Antinomianism,” 

; and “ A Polemical Essay”—Mr. Hill’s creed for perfectionists—A 

short account of the manner in which souls are purged from the 

remains of sin, according to the doctrine of the heathens, the Romanists, 

and Calvinists—The purgatory recommended by the Church of 

England, and vindicated in this book, is Christ's blood, and a soul- 
purifying faith. 


I caux the following essay The Last Check to Antinomianism, because 
it properly continues and closes the preceding Checks. When a late 
fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, attacked the doctrine of sincere obedi- 
ence, which I defend in the Checks, he said, with great truth, “ Sincere 

obedience, as a condition, will lead you unavoidably up to perfect 
_ obedience.” What he urged as an argument against our views of the 
Gospel, is one of the reasons by which we defend them, and perhaps the 
' strongest of all: for our doctrine leads us as naturally to holiness and 
perfect obedience, as that of our opponent does to sin and imperfections. 

_ Ifthe streams of Mr. Hill’s doctrine never stop, till they have carried 
men into a sea of indwelling sin, where he leaves them to struggle with 
waves of immorality, or with billows of corruption, all the days of their 
life ; it is evident that our doctrine, which is the very reverse of his, 
must take us to a sea of indwelling holiness, where we calmly outride 
all the storms which Satan raised to destroy Job’s perfection; and where 
' all our pursuing corruptions are as much destroyed as the Egyptians 

were in the Red Sea. 

| Truth, like Moses’ rod, is all of a piece ; and so is the serpent, which 
_ truth devours. Look at the tail of the error which we attack, and you 
| will see the venomous mortal sting of indwelling sin. Consider the 
but-end of the rod, with whicl we defend ourselves against that smooth, 

yet biting error, and you will find the pearl of great price, the invaluable 
diamond of Christian perfection. In the very nature of things, therefore, 
our long controversial warfare must end in a close engagement for the 
| __ preservation of the sting, or for the recovery of the jewel. If our adver- 
__ saries can save indwelling sin, the deadly sting, Antinomianism has won 
the day : but if we can rescue Christian perfection, the precious jewel, 
then will perfect Christianity again dares to show herself, without being 
attacked as a dangerous monster ; or scoffed at as the base offspring of 


} 


- 


a a 


486 _ PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK. . 
self ignorance and Pharisaic pride. This remark on the Antinomianism 
of our opponents is founded upon the following arguments :— 

1. All those who represent Christian believers as lawless, first, by 
denying that Christ’s law is a rule of judgment, which absolutely requires 
our own personal obedience ; secondly, by representing this law as a mere — 
tule of life ; and, thirdly, by insinuating that this rule of life is, after all, 
absolutely impracticable ; that a personal fulfilment of it is not expected — 
from any believer ; that there never was a Christian who lived one day 


a 
ee ef 


without breaking it ; and that believers shall be eternally saved, merely 
because Christ kept it for them: all those, I say, who hold this Solifidian 
doctrine concerning Christ’s law, are. Christian Antinomians with a wit- 
ness ; that is, they are lawless Christians in principle, if not in practice. 
Now, all those who attack the doctrine of constant obedience, and 
Christian perfection, which we maintain, are under this threefold error” 
concerning Christ’s law ; and therefore they are all Antinomians, that is, 
Christless, lawless in principle, though many of them, we are persuaded, 
are not so in practice; the fear of God causing in them a happy incon- 
sistency, between their legal conduct, and their lawless tenets. 

2. If those who plead for the breaking of Christ’s law, by the neces. 
sary indwelling of a revengeful thought, only for one week, or for one 
day, are bare-faced Antinomians; what shall we say of the men who, 
on various pretences, plead for the necessary indwelling of all manner 
of corruption, during the term of life? Can it be said, with any pro- 
priety, that these men are free from the plague of Antinomianism ? 

3. And lastly, when the reader comes to section xvi, wherein I pro- 
duce and answer the arguments by which the ministers of the imperfect 
gospel defend the continuance of indwelling sin in all believers till death, 
he will find that their strongest reasons for this continuance are the 
very same which the most lawless apostates, and the most daring 
renegadoes daily produce, when they plead for their continuing in 
drunkenness, lying, fornication, and adultery: and if these immoral 
gospellers deserve the name of gross Antinomians, why should not the 
moral men, who hold their loose principles, and publicly recommend 
them as “ doctrines of grace,” deserve the name of refined Antinomians ? 
‘May not a silk weaver, who softly works a piece of taffeta, be as justly 
called a weaver, as the man who weaves the coarsest sackcloth ? 

Through the force of these observations, after weighing my subject 
in the balances of meditation and prayer for some months, I am come 
to these alarming conclusions: (1.) There is no medium between 
pleading for the continuance of indwelling sin, and pleading for the con- 
tinuance of heart Antinomianism. And, (2.) All who attack the doctrine 
-of an evangelically sinless perfection, deserve, when they do it, (which 
I would hope is not often,) the name of advocates for sin, better than 
‘the name of Gospel ministers and preachers of righteousness. I am 


PE —=——. =< Or EE EEE ene 


PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK. 487 


. ° . . . 
conscious that this twofold conclusion wounds, in the tenderest part, 
several of my dear, mistaken brethren in the ministry, whom, on various 


accounts, I highly honour in the Lord. Nevertheless, I am obliged in 


conscience to publish it, lest any of my readers, or any of those whom 
they may warn, should be misled into Antinomianism, through the mis- 
takes of those popular preachers: for the interests of truth, the honour 
of Christ’s holy religion, and the welfare of precious souls are, and 
ought to be to me, and to every Christian, far dearer that the credit of 
some good, injudicious men, who inadvertently undermine the cause of 
godliness ; thinking to do God service by stretching forth a Solifidian 
hand to uphold the ark of Gospel truth. Thus much for the reasons 
which have engaged me to call this essay The Last Check to Anti- 
nomianism. 

If the reader desire to know why I call it also A Polemical Essay, 
he is informed, that Richard Hill, Esq., (at the end of a pamphlet 
entitled, “Three Letters written to the Rev. J. Fletcher, Vicar of 
Madeley,”) has published “ A Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists.” 
The ten first articles of this creed, which respect the Arminians, I have 
already answered in The Fictitious and Genuine Creed ; and the follow- 
ing sheets contain my reply to the last article, which entirely refers to 
the perfectionists. 

That gentleman introduces the whole of his fictitious creed by these 
lines :—* The following confession of faith, however shocking, not to say 
blasphemous, it may appear to the humble Christian, must inevitably be 
adopted, if not in express words, yet in substance, by every Arminian 
and perfectionist whatsoever ; though the last article of it chiefly con- 
cerns such as are ordained ministers of the Church of England.” The 
last article, which is the Creed I answer here, runs thus :-— 

“Though I have solemnly subscribed to the thirty-nine articles of the 
Church of England, and have affirmed that I believe them from my 
heart, yet I think our reformers were profoundly ignorant of true 
Christianity, when they declared, in the ninth article, that ‘the infection 
of nature does remain in them which are regenerate ;’ and in the 
fifteenth that ‘all we the rest (Christ only excepted) although baptized 
and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things, and if we say we 
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’ This [ 
totally deny, because it cuts up, root and branch, my favourite doctrine 
of perfection : and therefore let Peter, Paul, James, and John, say what 
they will, and let the reformers and martyrs join their syren song, their 
eyes were at best but half opened, (for want of a little Foundry eye salve,) 
therefore I cannot look upon them as adult believers in Jesus @hrist. 

“J. F. 
cl. W, 
“«Ww.S.” 


7 
488 PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECK. 


These initial letters probably stand for John Fletcher, John Wesley, — 
and Walter Sellon. As Mr. Hill seems to level his witty creed at | 
first, I shall first make my observations upon it. The van, without 
main body and the rear, may perhaps make a proper stand against th 
gentleman’s mistake: a dangerous mistake this, which is inseparably 
connected with the doctrine of a purgatory little better than that of the 
Papists ; it being evident that if we cannot be purged from the remains 
of sin in this life, we must be purged from them in death, or after death; — 
or we must be banished from God’s presence ; for reason and Scripture — 
jointly depose that “nothing unholy or unclean shall enter into the — 
heavenly Jerusalem.” 

If we understana by purgatory, the manner in which souls, still 
polluted with the remains of sin, are, or may be purged from these 
remains, that they may see a holy God, and dwell with him for ever; _ 
the question, Which is the true purgatory? is by no means frivolous: for 
it is the grand inquiry, How shall I be eternally saved? proposed in dif- — 
ferent expressions. 

There are four opinions concerning purgatory, or the purgation of — 
souls from the remains of sin. The wildest is that of the heathens, 
who supposed “that the souls, who depart this life with some moral — 
filth cleaving to them, are purified by being hanged out to sharp, cuttmg — 
winds ; by being plunged into a deep, impetuous whirlpool; or being — 
thrown into a refining fire in some Tartarean region ;” witness these — 
lines of Virgil :— | 


Alice panduntur inanes q 
Suspense ad ventos: aliis sub gurgite vasto 


Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni. 
) 


The second opinion is that of the Romanists, who teach that such — 
souls are completely sanctified by the virtue of Christ’s blood, and the 
sharp operation of a penal, temporary fire in the suburbs of hell. The 
third opinion is that of the Calvinists, who think that the stroke of death 
must absolutely be joined with Christ’s blood and Spirit, and with our 
faith, to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, and to kill the inbred man 
of sin. 

The last sentiment is that of the Church of England, which teaches 
that there is no other purgatory but “ Christ’s blood,”—* steadfast, per- 
fect faith ;” and “the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, cleansing the 
thoughts of our hearts, that we may perfectly love him, and worthily 
magnify his holy name.” ‘'The only purgatory, wherein we must trust 
to b&saved,” says she, “is the death and blood of Christ, which, if we 
apprehend with a true and steadfast faith, [called soon after ‘a perfect 
faith,”] it purgeth and cleanseth us from all our sins. ‘The blood of 
Christ,’ says St. John, ‘hath cleansed us from all sin.’ ‘The blood of 


————_ ee Oe ee 


PREFACE TO THE LAST CHECE, 489 


Christ,’ says St. Paul, ‘hath purged our consciences from dead works 
serve the living God,’ &c. This then is the purgatory wherein all 
co ian men put their trust and confidence.” (Homily on Prayer, 


; Nori : this doctrine of purgatory peculiar to the Church of England ; 
for the unprejudiced Puritans themselves maintained it in the last cen- 
tury. Mr. R. Alleine, in his excellent treatise on Godly Fear, printed 
_ in London, 1674, says, page 161, “The Lord Christ is sometimes 
resembled to a refining fire, &c. ‘He is a refiner’s fire, and he shall 
sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.’ He shall purify, ‘he shall save 
his people from their sins,’ yet so as by fire. God has his purgatory as 
well as his hell; though not according to that popish dream, a pur- 
gatory after this life.” And I beg ieave to ad¢é,—though not according 
to that Calyinian dream, a purgatory when we leave this life——a pur- 
gatory in the article of death. 

The Scriptural doctrine of purgatory is vindicated, and the new- 
fangled doctrine of a death purgatory is exploded in the following 
pages: wherein I endeavour both to defend “the glorious liberty of 
the children of God,” and to attack the false liberty of those “ who, 

~ while they promise liberty to others in Christ, are themselves [doctrinally 
at least] the servants of corruption ;” pleading hard for the indwelling 
of sin in our hearts so long as we live; and thinking it almost 
“blasphemous” to assert that Christ’s blood, fully applied by the Spirit, 
through a steadfast faith, can radically “cleanse us from all sin,” with- 
out the least assistance from the arrows or sweats of death. 

Reader, I plead for the most precious liberty in the world, heart 
_ liberty; for liberty from the most galling of all yokes, the yoke of heart 

corruption. Let not thy prejudices turn a deaf ear to the important 
plea. If thou candidly, believingly, and practically receive “the truth 
as it is in Jesus, it shall make thee free, and thou shalt be free indeed.” 
| Then, instead of shouting, “ Indwelling sin and death purgatory,” thou 
| wilt fulfil the law of liberty; shouting, “Christ and Christian liberty 
: 


for ever!” In the meantime, when thou makest intercession for thy 
well wishers, remember the author of this essay, and pray that he may 
plead on his knees against the remains of sin, far more earnestly than ke 
does in these sheets against Mr. Hill’s mistakes. 


es 


THE 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


: SECTION I. 

The best way of opposing the doctrines of Christian imperfection and a 
death purgatory, is to place the doctrine of Christian perfection in a 
proper light—Christian perfection is the maturity of a believer’s grace 
under the Gospel of Christ—It is absurd to suppose that this perfection 
is sinless, if it be measured by our Creator’s law of paradisiacal inno- 
cence and obedience—Established believers fulfil our Redeemer’s evan- 
gelical law of liberty— While they fulfil it, they do not transgress it, 
that is, (evangelically speaking,) they do not sin. 


Most of the controversies, which arise between men who fear God, 
spring from the hurry with which some of them find fault with what 
they have not yet examined, and speak evil of what they do not under- 
stand. Why does Mr, Hill, at the head of the Calvinists, attack the 
doctrine of Christian perfection which we contend for? Is it because 
he and they are sworn enemies to righteousness, and zealous protectors 
of iniquity? Not at all. The grand reason, next to their Calvinian 
prejudice, is their inattention to the question, and to the arguments by 
which our sentiments are supported. Notwithstanding the manner in 
which that gentleman has treated me and my triends in his controversial 
heats, I still entertain so good an opinion of him as to think that if he 
understood our doctrine, he would no more pour contempt upon it, than 
upon the oracles of God. I shall, therefore, endeavour to rectify his 
ideas of the glorious Christian liberty which we press after. If pro- 
ducing light is the best method of opposing darkness, setting the doctrine 
of Christian perfection in a proper point of view will be the best means 
of opposing the doctrines of Christian imperfection, and of a death pur- 
gatory. Begin we then by taking a view of our Jerusalem and her per- 
fection: and when we shall have “‘ marked her bulwarks,” and cleared 
the ground between her towers and Mr. Hill’s battery, we shall march 
up to it, and see whether his arguments have the solidity of brass, or 
only the showy appearance of wooden artillery, painted and mounted 
like brazen ordnance. 

CuristIAN perrection! Why should the harmless phrase offend 
us? Perfection! Why should that lovely word frighten us? Is it not 
common and plain? Did not Cicero speak intelligibly when he called 
accomplished philosophers rerrecros philosophos, and an EXCELLENT 
orator PERFECTUM vratorem? Did Ovid expose his reputation when he 


_ + said that “ Chiron* perfected Achilles in music,” or “taught him to pla 
Pp g play 


on the lute to perfection ?” And does Mr. Hill think it wrong to observe 


_ that fruit grown to maturity is in its perfection? We, whom that gen- 


* Phillyrides puerum cithara perfecit Achillem. 


| 4. 
492 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


_ tleman calls perfectionists, use the word* perfection exactly in the same — 
sense ; giving that name to the maturity of grace peculiar to established — 
believers under their respective dispensations; and if this be an error, — 
we are led into it by the sacred writers, who use the word perfectio 
as well as we. ‘ a 
The word predestinate occurs but four times in all the Scriptures, and 
the word predestination not once ; and yet Mr. Hill would justly exclaim 
against us, if we showed our wit by calling for “a little Foundry [or — 
Tabernacle eye salve,” to help us to see the word predestination once — 
in all the Bible. Not so the word perfection: it occurs, with all its — 
derivatives, as frequently as most words in the Scriptures, and not . 


seldom in the very same sense in which we take it. Nevertheless, we 
do not lay an undue stress upon the expression; and if we thought that 
our condescension would answer any good end, we would entirely give up 
that harmless and significant word. But, if it is expedient to retain the ~ 
unscriptural word trinity, because it is a kind of watchword by which — 
we frequently. discover the secret opposers of the mysterious distinction 
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the Divine unity, how much more 
proper is it not to renounce the Scriptural word perfection, by which the ~ 
dispirited spies, who bring an evil report upon the good land of holiness, — 
are often detected? Add to this that the following declaration of our 
Lord does not permit us to renounce either the word or the thing :— 
«Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this sinful 
generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he 
cometh in the glory of his Father.” Now the words of my motto, 
“Be ye perfect,” &c, being Christ’s own words, we dare no more be 
ashamed of them, than we,dare desire him to be ashamed of us in the” 
great day. Thus much for the word perfection. 

Again: we give the name of “Christian perfection” to that maturity 
of grace and holiness which established adult believers attain to under 
the Christian dispensation: and thus we distinguish that maturity of 
grace, both from the ripeness of grace, which belongs to the dispensa- 
tion of the Jews below us ; and from the ripeness of glory, which belongs” 
to departed saints above us. Hence it appears, that by “ Christian per- 
fection” we mean nothing but the cluster and maturity of the graces 
which compose the Christian character in the Church militant. a 

In other words, Christian perfection is a spiritual constellation made 
up of these gracious stars, perfect repentance, perfect faith, perfect hu 
mility, perfect meekness, perfect self denial, perfect resignation, perfect 


*The word perfection comes from the Latin perficio, to perfect, to finish, to 
accomplish ; it exactly answers to the words Monn, and 7edevow, generally used in 
the Old and New Testament. Nor can their derivatives be more literally and 
exactly rendered, than by perfect and perfection. If our translators render some- 
times the word ton by upright and sincere, or by sincerity and integrity, it is be- 
cause they know that these expressions, like the original word, admit of a grea 
latitude. Thus Columel calls wood that has no rotten part, and is perfectly 
sound, lignum sincerum ; and Horace says that a sweet cask, which has no bad — 
smell of any sort, is vas sincerum. Thus also Cicero calls purity of dicti 
which is perfectly free from faults against grammar, integritas sermonis: Plautus. 
says that a pure, undefiled virgin is filia integra. And our translators call the 
perfectly pure milk of God’s word, the sincere milk of the word, 1 Pet. ii,2. Tf, 
therefore, the words sincerity and integrity are taken in their full latitude, they 
convey the fullest meaning of npn, and redeorns, that is, perfection. 


i . 


“vy 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISN. 493 


hope, perfect charity for our visible enemies, as well as for our earthly 
_ relations; and, above all, perfect love for our invisible God, through the 
explicit knowledge of our Mediator Jesus Christ. And as this last star 
is always accompanied by by all the others, as Jupiter is by his satellites, 
) we frequently use, as St. John, the phrase “perfect love,” instead of 

Riad gofecin; understanding by it the pure love of God shed 
abroad in the hearts of established believers by the Holy Ghost, which 
| abundantly given them under the fulness of the Christian dispensation, 
| Should Mr. Hill ask if the Christian perfection which we contend 
fr ines erection we rep Sin is the transgression of a Divme 

and man may be considered either as being under the anti-evangelical, 

remediless law of our Creator ; or, a3 being under the eran- 

gelical, mediatorial, remedying law of our Redeemer : “and the question 
Must be answered according to the nature of these two laws. 

With respect to the rmsr, that is, the Adamic, Christless law of 
imnocence and paradisiacal perfection, we utterly renounce the doctrme 
of sinless perfection, for three reasons: (1.) We are conceived and 
bom ii a state of sinful degeneracy, whereby that law is already vir- 
tually broken. (2.) Our mental and bodily powers are so enfeebled, 
we cannot help actually breaking that law in numberiless instances, 
sven after our full conversion. And, (3.) When once we have broken 

f law, it considers us as transgressors for ever: nor can it any more 
’ us sinless, than the rigorous law which condemns a man to 
for murder, can absolve a murderer, let his répentance and 
faith be ever so perfect. Therefore, I repeat it, with respect to the 
Christless law of paradisiacal obedience, we entirely disclaim sinless 
perfection ; and, improperly speaking. we say with Lather, «In every 
good work the just man sinneth ;” that is, he more or less transgresses 
the law of paradisiacal innocence, by not thinking so deeply, not speak- 
} mg so gracefully, not acting so properly, not obeying so vigorously, as 
he would do if he were still endued with original perfection, and para- 

siz powers. Nor do we, in the same sense, scruple to say with 
hop Latimer, “He [Christ] saved us, not that we should be without 
Piel tay sin chould be lefi in our hearts: no; he saved us not so. 
tall manner of imperfections remain in us, yea, in the best of us: 
> that, if God should enter into judgment with us, [according to the 
Chns ess law given to Adam before the fall.] we should be damned. 

or there neither is nor was any man born mto this world, who could 
, Lam clean from sin, [I fulfil the Adamic law of imnocence,] except 
a eed het cmc web all scan to prny eal Devt 

Cleanse thou me from my secret faults :” for «if thou wilt mark what 
} 4s done amiss, Lord, who may abide it’ If thou wilt judge us accord- 
“lug to the law of paradisiacal perfection, “what man living shall be 
ee Bat Christ has so completely fulfilled our 
Creator's paradisiacal law of imnocence, which allows neither of repent- 
‘ance nor of renewed obedience, that we shall not be judged by that law, 
bat by a law adapted to our present state and circumstances, a milder 
las, called « the law of Christ,” i. e. the Mediator’s law, which is, like 

«full of erangelical grace and truth.” 

Eg eRUeM Reta eL have wdeanced 2 the Gbcckawie 

of this law. I shall add one more, taken from Heb. vii, 12 :— 


“- 


494 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


«The priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change — 
also of the law.” From these words I conclude, that if the law unde1 
which the Jews were, was of necessity changed when God substitute 
the priesthood of Christ for that of Aaron, much more was the Adami¢ 
law of paradisiacal innocence of necessity changed, when God gave to 
Adam by promise “the Bruiser of the serpent’s head, the High Priest 
after the order of Melchisedec.” For if a change in the external 


more did the institution of the priesthood itself necessarily imply a 
change of the Adamic law, which was given without any mediating 
priest ! ; q 

If Mr. Hill, therefore, will do our doctrine justice, we entreat him to 
consider that “ we are not without law to God,” nor yet under a Chris 
less law with Adam; byt “under a law to Christ, ” that is, under the law 
of our royal Priest, the evangelical “law of liberty :” a more gracious 
law this, which allows a sincere repentance, and is fulfilled by loving 
faith. Now as we shall be “judged by this law of liberty,” we main 
tain not only that it may, but also that it must be kept; and that it is 
actually kept by established Christians, according to the last and fulles 
edition of it, which is that of the New Testament. Nor do we think it 
“shocking,” to hear an adult believer say, * The law of the Spirit of of 


For what the law [of innocence, or the letter of the Mosaic law] coul 
not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son, 
condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be 
[evangelically] fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
Spirit,” Rom. viii, 2, &ec. 
Reason and Scripture seem to us to confirm this doctrine: for we 
think it is far less absurd to say that the king and parliament make laws” 
which no Englishman can possibly keep; than to suppose that Christ 
and his apostles have given us precepts which no Christian is able to 
observe: and St. James assures us the evangelical law of Christ and 
liberty is that by which we shall stand or fall in judgment: “So 
ye, and so do,” says he, “as they that shall be judged by the law of 
liberty,” James u, 12. We find the Christian edition of that law, in all 
parts of the New Testament, but especially in our Lord’s sermon on the 
mount, and in St. Paul’s description of charity. We are persuaded, with 
St. John and St. Paul, that as “sin is the transgression,” so penitential, 
pure “love is the fulfilling of that evangelical law ;” and therefore do 
not scruple to say with the apostle, “that he who loveth another hath 
fulfilled it; and that there is no occasion of stumbling, i. e. no sin im 
him ;” fulfilling the law of Christ, and sinning, (in the evangelical sense 
of the word,) being as diametrically opposite to each other as obeying 
and disobeying, working righteousness and working iniquity. ; 
We do not doubt but, as a reasonable, loving father never requires | 
of his child, who is only ten years old, the work of one who is thirty 
years of age; so our heavenly Father never expects‘of us, in our debili- ” 
tated state, the obedience of immortal Adam in paradise, or the uninter- 
rupted worship of sleepless angels in heaven. We are persuaded, 
therefore, that, for Christ’s sake, he is pleased with an humble obedience 
to our present light; and a loving exertion of our present powers; 


ae 
. 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 495 


| accepimg our Gospel services “according to what we have, and not 
according to what we have not.” Nor dare we call that lovmg exertion 
of our present power, sin, lest by domg so we should contradict the 

confound sm and obedience, and remove all the landmarks 
| which divide the devil’s common from the Lord’s vineyard. And if at 
ts a Saar an Christ’s law, we 
our error, and confess that, by this mean, we have Cal- 


# To conclude. We believe, that although adult, established believers, 
or perfect Christians, may admit of many imvoluntary mistakes, errors, 
and faults ; and of many involuntary impropricties of speech and be- 
haviour; yet so long as their will is bent upon doing God’s will; so long 
as they walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; sd long as they 
fulfil the law of liberty by pure love, they do not sin according to the 
_ Gospel : because (evangelically speaking) « ‘sin is the transgression, and 
love is the fulfilling of that law.” Far then from thinking that there is 
tue least absurdity in saying daily, « Vouchsafe to keep me this day 
without sin,” we doubi not but in the believers, who “walk in the light 
as Christ is in the light,” that deep petition is answered,—ihe righteous- 
ness of the law, which they are under, is fulfilled ; and, of consequence, 
am evangelically sinless perfection is daily experienced. I say evan- 
gelically sinless, because, without the word evangelically, the phrase 
“sinless perfection” gives an occasion of cavilling to those who seek it, 
as Mr. Wesley intimates in the following quotation, which is taken from 
his «Plain Account of Christian Perfection?’ p. 66:—*To explain my- 


so called, that is, an tvvojuniary transgression of a Divine law, known or 
unknown, needs the atonmg blood. (2.) I believe there is no such per-, 
fection im this life as excludes these inmvoluniary transgressions which I 
Mets Gotemniy. Gy 1 on the ignorance and mistakes 
from mortality. (3.) Therefore sinless perfection is a 

I never use, lest I should seem to contradict myself (4.) I 

a person filled with the love of God is still liable to these m- 
transgressions. (5.) Such transgressions you may call sins if 

you please: I do not, for the reasons above mentioned.” 


SECTION IE. 


Pious Calvinists have had, at times, nearly the same views of Christian 
perfection as we have—They dissent from us chiefly because they 
confound the anti-evangelical law of innocence, and the evangelical law 
of liberty; Adamic and Christian perfection; and because they do 
not consider that Christian perfection, falling infinitely short of God's 
absolute perfection, admits of a daily growth. 

oT Eiclipagt ian soomegaa doctrine of Chnstian per- 


stated in the preceding pages, by almost numberless quotations 
the most judicious pilin: Galezcte, the sentiments of two or 


| 
| 
| 
: 


496 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


three of them may edify the reader, and give him a specimen of the 
candour with which they have written upon the subject, when a spring. 
tide of evangelical truth raised them above the shallows of their 
system. ; 

+” If love be sincere,” says pious Mr. Henry, “it is accepted as 
the fulfilling of the law. Surely we serve a good Master, that has 
summed up all our duty in one word, and that a short word, and a sweet 
word, love, the beauty and harmony of the universe. Loving and being 
loved is all the pleasure, joy, and happiness of an intelligent being. God 
is love ; and love is his image upon the soul. Where it is, the soul is 
well moulded, and the heart fitted for every good work.” (Henry's Ex- 
position on Rom, xiii, 10.) Again: “It is well for us that, by virtue of 
the covenant of grace, upon the score of Christ’s righteousness, sincerity 
is accepted as our Gospel perfection.” (Henry on Gen. vi, 2.) See the 
note on the word perfection, sec. 1. 

Pious Bishop Hopkins is exactly of the same mind. Consider,” 
says he, “for your encouragement, that this is not so much the absolu 
and legal perfection of the work, as the [evangelical] perfection of the 
worker, that is, the perfection of the heart, which is looked at an 

Geewarded by God. There is a twofold perfection, the perfection of the 
work, and that of the workman. ‘The perfection of the work is, when 
‘the work does so exactly and strictly answer the holy law of God, that 
there is no irregularity in it. The perfection of the werkman is nothin g 
but inward sincerity and uprightness of the heart toward God, which 
may be where there ‘are many imperfections and defects intermingled, 
If God accepted and rewarded no work, but what is absolutely perfeet 
in respect of the law; this would take off the wheels of all endeavours, 
for our obedience falls far short of legal perfection in this life; [the 
Adamic law making no allowance for the weakness of fallen man.] But 
we do not stand upon such terms as these with our God. It is not so 
much what our works are, as what our heart is, that God looks at and 
will reward. Yet know, also, that if our hearts are perfect and sincere, 
we shall endeavour, to the utmost of our power, that our works may be 
perfect, according to the strictness of the law.” 

Archbishop Leighton pleads also for the perfection we maintain, and 
by Calvinistically supposing that perseverance is necessary to Christian 
perfection, he extols it above Adam’s paradisiacal perfection. Take 
his own words abridged :—“ By obedience, sanctification is here inti 
mated : it signifies both habitual and actual obedience, renovation of the 
heart, and conformity to the Divine will: the mind is illuminated by the 
Holy Ghost to know and believe the Divine will; yea, this faith is the’ 
great and chief part of this obedience, Rom. i, 8. The truth of the 
doctrine is impressed upon the mind, hence flows out pleasant obedience 
and full [he does not say of sin, but] of love: hence all the affections, 
and the whole body with its members, learn to give a willing chet 
and submit to God ; whereas before they resisted him, being under the 
standard of Satan. This obedience, though imperfect, [when it ist 
measured by the Christless law of paradisiacal innocence] yet has a 
certain, if I may so say, imperfect perfection. [It is not legally but 
evangelically perfect.] It is universal [or perfect] three manner of ways. 
‘1.) In the subject: it is not in the tongue alone, or in the hand, &c, 


EAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 497 


but has its root in the heart. (2.) In the object: it embraces the whole 
law, &c. It accounts no command little, which is from God, because 
he is great and highly esteemed; no command hard, though contrary 
to the flesh, because all things are easy to love; there is the same 
authority in all, as St. James Divinely argues. And this authority is 
the golden chain to all the commandments, [of the law of lberty 
preached by St. James, | which, if broken in any link, falls to pieces. 
(3.) In the duration : the whole man is subjected to the whole law, and 
that constantly. That this threefold perfection of obedience is not a 
picture drawn by fancy, is evident in David, Psalm ecxix.” (Archbishop 
Leighton’s Com. on St. Peter, p. 15.) 

‘That learned prelate, as a pious man, could not but be a perfectionist ; 
though, as a Calvinist, he frequently spoke the language of the imper- 
fectionists. Take one more quotation, where he grants all that we con- 
tend for:—“To be subject to him [God] is truer happiness than to 
command the whole world. Pure love reckons thus, though no farther 
reward were to follow ; obedience to God (the perfection of his creature, 
and its very happiness) carries its full recompense in its own bosom. 
Yea, love delights most in the hardest services, &c. It is love to him, 
indeed, to love the labour of love, and the service of it; and that not so 
much because it leads to rest, and ends in it, but because it is service to 
him whom we love: yea, that labour is in itself a rest, it is so natural 
and sweet toa soul that loves. As the revolution of the heavens, which 
is a motion in rest, and rest in motion, changes not place, though run- 
ning still; so the motion of love is truly heavenly, and circular still in 
God ; beginning in him, and ending in him; and so not ending, but 
moving still without weariness, &c. According as the love is, so is 
the soul: it is made like to, yea, it is made one with that which it 
loves, &c. By the love of God it is made Divine, is one with him, &c. 
Now though fallen from this, we are invited to it; though degenerated 
and accursed im sinful nature, yet we are renewed in Christ, and this 
commandment ig renewed in him, and a new way of fulfilling it [even 
the way of faith in our Redeemer] is pointed out.” (Select Works of 
Archbishop Leighton, p. 461.) Where has Mr. Wesley ever ex- 
ceeded this high description of Christian perfection ? 

I grant that this pious prelate frequently confounds our celestial per- 
fection of glory with our progressive perfection of grace, and on that 
account supposes that the latter is not attainable in this life: but even 
then he exhorts us to quit ourselves like sincere perfectionists. “'Though 
men,” says he, “fall short of their aim, yet it is good to aim high. 
They shall shoot so much the higher, but not full so high as they aim 
Thus we ought to be setting the state of perfection in our eye, resolving* 


* T think I have said in one of the Checks that Archbishop Leighton doubted 
whether those who do not sincerely aspire after perfection, have saving grace = 
that doubt (if I now remember right) is Mr. Alleine’s, though this quotation from 
the archbishop shows that he was not far from Alleine’s sentiment, if he was not 
in it. Pious Dr. Doddridge is explicit on this head :— To allow yourself,” said 
he, ‘‘deliberately to sit down satisfied with any imperfect sttieniptciaih religion, 
and to look upon a more confirmed and improved state of it as what you do not 
desire, nay, as what you secretly resolve that you will not pursue, is one of the 
most fatal signs. we can well imagine, that you are an entire stranger to the first 
vrinciples of it.” (Doddridge’s Rise and Progress, chap. xx. 

Vox. Il. 32 


498 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


not to rest content below that, and to come as near as we Can, e 
before we come at it, Phil. iii, 11, 12. This is to act as one that | 
such a hope, such a state in view, and is still advancing toward i 
(ibid. p. 184.) The mistake of the archbishop will be particularly 
pointed out where I shall show the true meaning of Phil. ili, 11, the 
passage behind which he screens the remains of his Calvinian prejudices eS. 

By the preceding quotations, and by two more from the Rey. Messrs, 
Whitefield and Romaine, which the reader will find at the end of sec. ix, 
it appears that pious Calvinists come at times very near the doctrine of 
Christian perfection; and if they do not constantly enforce it, it is, ¥ 
apprehend, chiefly for the followi ing reasons :— 

1. They generally confound the Christless law of innocence with he 
evangelical law of Christ ; and because the former cannot be fulfilled by 
believers, they conclude that pure obedience to the latter is ae 7 

2. They confound peccability with sin; the power of sinning y 
the actual use of that power. And so long as they suppose that a ba ro 
natural capacity to sin, is either original sin, or an evil propensity, we de 
hot wonder at their believing that original sin, or evil propensities, m 
remain in our hearts till death removes us from this tempting wor! cs J 
But on what argument do they found this notion? Did not God create 
angels and man peccable? Or, in other terms, did he not endue them with 
a power to sin, or not to sin, to disobey, or obey, as they pleased? Did not 
the event show that they had this tremendous power? But would it not be 
“blasphemous” to assert that God created them full of original sin and 
evil propensities? If an adult believer yields to temptation, and falls 
into sin as our first parents did, is it a proof that he never was clean 
from inbred sin? If sinning necessarily demonstrates that the h 
was always teeming with depravity, will it not follow that Adam 
Eve were tainted with sin before their will began to decline from orig 
righteousness? Is it not, however, indubitable, from the nature of € 
from Scripture, and from sad experience, that after having been crea 
in God’s sinless image and holy likeness, our first parents, as well 
‘some angels, were “drawn away of their own self-conceited lust,” 
became evil by the power of their own free agency? Is it reaso 
to think that the most holy Christians, so long as the day of their 
tion and probation lasts in this tempting wilderness, are in that respect 
above Adam in paradise, and above angels in heaven? And may we 
not conclude that as Satan and Adam insensibly fell into sin, the 
from the height of his celestial perfection, and the other from the sun 
of his paradisiacal excellence, without any previous bias inclining hit 
to corruption ; so may those believers, whose hearts have been com. 
pletely purified by faith, gradually depart from the faith, and fall so low 
as to “account the blood of the covenant, wherewith they were sanctifiec 
an unholy thing ?” of... 

3. The prejudices of our opponents are increased by their confoun¢ 
ing Adamic* and Christian perfection; two perfections, these, wh 


* Betweén Adamic and Christian perfection we place the gracious innocence 
little children. They are not only full of peccability like Adam, but debili 
in all their animal and rational faculties, and, of consequence, fit to “become | 
easy prey to temptation; through the weakness of their reason, and the corruption — 
of their corftupiscible and irascible powers. Nevertheless, till they begin per- 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 499 


are as distinct as the garden of Eden and the Christian Church. 
Adamie perfection came from God our Creator in paradise, before any 
trial of Adam’s faithful obedience : and Christian perfection comes from 
God our Redeemer and Sanctifier in the Christian Church, after a severe 
trial of the obedience of faith. Adamic perfection might be lost by 
doing despite to the preserving love of God our Creator; and Christian 
perfection may be lost by doing despite to the redeeming love of God 
our Saviour. Adamic perfection extended to the whole man: his body 
was perfectly sound in all its parts, and his soul in all its powers. But 
Christian perfection extends chiefly to the will, which is the capital, 
moral power of the soul; leaving the understanding ignorant of ten 
thousand things, and the body “dead because of sin.” 

4, Another capital mistake lies at the root of the opposition which 
our Calvinian brethren make against Christian perfection. They 
imagine that, upon our principles, the grace of an adult Christian is like 
the body of an adult man, which can grow no more. But this conse- 
quence flows from their fancy, and not from our doctrine. We exhort 
the strongest believers to “ grow up to Christ in all things ;” asserting 
that there is no holiness and no happiness in heaven, (much less upon 
earth,) which does not admit of a growth, except the holiness and hap- 
piness of God himself; because, in the very nature of things, a being 
absolutely perfect, and in every sense infinite, can never have any thing 
added tohim. But infinite additions may be made to’beings a way 
finite, such as glorified saints and holy angels are. 

Hence it appears that the comparison which we make between the 
ripeness of a fruit, and the maturity of a believer’s grace, cannot be 
carried into an exact parallel. For a perfect Christian grows far more 
than a feeble believer, whose growth is still obstructed by the shady 
thorns of sin, and by the draining suckers of iniquity. Beside, a fruit 
which is come to its perfection, instead of growing, falls and decays: 
whereas a “babe in Christ” is called to grow till he becomes a perfect 
Christian ; a perfect Christian, till he becomes a disembodied spirit ; a 
disembodied spirit, till he reaches the perfection of a saint glorified in 
body and soul ; and such a saint, till he has fathomed the infinite depths 
of Divine perfection, that is, to all eternity. For if we go on from 
faith to faith, and are spiritually “ changed from glory to glory,” by 
peholding God “ darkly through a glass” on earth ; much more shall we 
experience improving changes, when we shall “ see him as he is,” and 
behold him face to face in various, numberless, and still brighter dis- 
coveries of himself in heaven. If Mr. Hill did but consider this, he 
would no more suppose that Christian perfection is the Pharisaic rickets 


sonally to prefer moral evil to moral good, we may consider them as evangelically 
or graciously innocent. I say graciously innocent, because, if we consider them 
in the seed of fallen Adam, we find them naturally ‘‘ children of wrath,” and 
under the curse : but if we consider them ‘“‘in the seed of the woman,” ite 
was promised to Adam and to his posterity, we find them graciously placed in a 
state of redemption and evangelical salvation. For “‘ the free gift which is come 
upon all men to justification,” belongs first to them, Christ having sanctified 
infancy first. And therefore we do not scruple to say, after our Lord, ‘“‘ Of such 
is the kingdom of heaven.” Now the kingdom of heaven is not of sinners as 
Sinners, but of little children, as being innocent through the free gift; or of 


adults, as being penitent, that is, turned from their sins to Christ. 


500 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


which put a stop to the growth of believers, and turn them into “ te 
porary monsters.” Again :— ~ 

Does a well-meant mistake-defile the conscience? You imadyertently 
encourage idleness and drunkenness, by kindly relieving an idle, drunken 
beggar, who imposes upon your charity by plausible lies: is this loving 
error a sin? A blundering apothecary sends you arsenic for alum; you 
use it as alum, and poison your child; but are you a murderer, if you 
give the fatal dose in love? Suppose "the tempter had secretly mixed 


gathered for use ; would she have sinned if she had inadvertently eaten 
of it, and given a share to her husband? ‘After humbly confessing” 
and deploring her undesigned error, her secret fault, her accidenta 
offence, her involuntary trespass, would she not have been as innocent 
as ever? I go farther still, and ask, May not a man who holds many 
right opinions, be a perfect lover of the world? And by a parity of 
reason, may not a man who holds many wrong opinions, be a perfect 
lover of God? Have not some Calvinists died with their hearts over. 
flowing with perfect love, and their heads full of the notion that God set 
his everlasting, absolute hatred upon myriads of men before the founda. 
tion of the world? Nay, is it not even possible that a man, whose heart 
is renewed in love, should, through mistaken humility, or through weak- 
ness of understanding, oppose the name of Christian perfection, when 
he desires, and pérhaps enjoys the thing ? 

Once more. Does not St. Paul’s rule hold in spirituals as well as 
in temporals? “It is accepted according to what a man hath, and not 
according to what he hath not.” Does our Lord actually require more 
of believers than they can actually do through his grace? And when 
they do it to the best of their power, does he not see some perfection 
in their works, insignificant as those works may be? “ Remove this 
immense heap of stones,” says an indulgent father to his children, 
“and be diligent according to your strength.” While the eldest, a 
strong man, removes rocks, the youngest, a little child, is as cheerfully 
busy as any of the rest in carrying sands and pebbles. Now, may not his 
childlike obedience be as excellent in its degree, and, of consequence, 
as acceptable to his parent, as the manly obedience of Ifts eldest brother’ p 
Nay, though he does next to nothing, may not his endeavours, if they 
are more cordial, excite a smile of superior approbation of his loving 
father, who looks at the disposition of the heart more than at the ap 
pearance of the work? Had the believers of Sardis cordially laid out 
all their talents, would our Lord have complained that he did not “find 
their works perfect before God?” Rev. ili, 2. And was it not accord. 
ing to this rule of perfection that Christ testified the poor widow, who 
had given but two mites, had nevertheless cast more into the treasury 
than all the rich, “ though they had cast in much ;” because, our Lo i 
himself being Judge, she had “ given all that she had?” Now could 
she give, or did God require more than her all? And when she ia 
heartily gave her all, did she not do (evangelically speaking) a perfect 
work, according to her dispensation and circumstances ? 

We flatter ourselves that if these Scriptural observations and rational — 
queries do not remove Mr. Hill’s prejudice, they will at least mt way 
for a more @andid perusal of the following pages. 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 501 


e SECTION III. 


Several objections raised against our doctrine are solved merely by con- 
sidering the nature of Christian perfection—It is absurd to say that 
all our Christian perfection is in the person of Christ. 


I repeat it, if our pious opponents decry the doctrine of Christian 
perfection, it is chiefly through misapprehension ; it being as natural 
for pious men to recommend exalted piety, as for covetous persons to 
extol great riches. And this misapprehension frequently springs from 
their inattention to the nature of Christian perfection. To prove it, I 
need only oppose our definition of Christian perfection to the opsECTIONS 
which are most commonly raised against our doctrine. 

I. “Your doctrine of perfection leads to pride.” Impossible! if 
Christian perfection is “ perfect humility.” 

Il. “It exalts believers ; but it is only to the state of the vain-glori- 
ous Pharisee.” Impossible! If our perfection is “perfect humility,” 
it makes us sink deeper into the state of the humble, justified publican. 

iil. “It fills men with the conceit of their own excellence, and makes 
them say to a weak brother, Stand by, I am holier than thou.” Impos- 
sible again! We do not preach Pharisaic, but Christian perfection, 
which consists in “perfect poverty of spirit,’ and in that “perfect 
charity which vaunteth not itself, honours all men, and bears with the 
infirmities of the weak !” 

IV. “It sets repentance aside.” Impossible! for it is “ perfect 
repentance.” 

V. “Jt will make us slight Christ.” More and more improbable! 
How can “perfect faith” m Christ make us shght Christ? Could it be 
more absurd to say that the perfect love of God will make us despise 
God? 

VI. “It will supersede the use of mortification and watchfulness ; for, 
if sin be dead, what need have we to mortify it and to watch against it ?” 

This objection has some plausibility ; I shall therefore answer it in 
various ways: (1.) If Adam, in his state of paradisiacal perfection, 
needed perfect watchfulness and perfect mortification, how much more 
do we need them who find “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” 
planted, not only in the midst of our gardens, but in the midst of our 
houses, markets, and churches? (2.) When we are delivered from sin, 
are we delivered from peccability and temptation? When the inward man 
of sin is dead, is the devil dead? Is the corruption that is in the world 
_ destroyed? And have we not still our five senses and our appetite, “to 
keep with all diligence,” as well as our “hearts,” that the tempter may 
_ not enter into us, or that we may not enter into his temptations? 
Lastly: Jesus Christ, as son of Mary, was a perfect man: but how was 
he kept so to the end? Was it not by “keeping his motth with a bridle, 
while the ungodly were in his sight,” and by guarding all his senses with 
a perfect assiduity, that the wicked one might not touch them to his 
hurt? And if Christ our head kept his human perfection only through 
watchfulness, and constant self denial; is it not absurd to suppose that 
his perfect members can keep their perfection without treading in 
his steps? e 


502 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


VII. Another objection probably stands in Mr. Hill’s way: it 
thus :—“ Your doctrine of perfection makes it needless for perft 
tians to say the Lord’s prayer: for if God vouchsafes to eee us t 


tarily, and ck the law of love, yet he Fi breaks the law of Ada 
perfection through the imperfection of his bodily and mental powers : and 
he has frequently a deeper sense of these involuntary trespasses thar 
many weak believers have of their voluntary breaches of the moral law. 
(2.) Although a perfect Christian has a witness, that his sins are now 
forgiven, in the court of his conscience, yet he “knows the terrors of 
the Lord:” he hastens to meet the awful day of God: he waits for the 
appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the character of a righteous’ 
Judge: he keeps an eye to the awful tribunal, before which he must 
soon “be justified or condemned by his words:” he is conscious tha 
his final justification is not yet come; and therefore he would think 
himself a monster of stupidity and pride, if, with an eye to his absolu- 
tion in the great day, he scrupled saying to the end of his life, “ Forgive 
us our trespasses.” (3.) He is surrounded with sinners, who daily 
“trespass against him,” and whom he is daily bound to “ forgive ;” and 
his praying that he may be forgiven now, and in the great day, ‘as he 
forgives others,” reminds him that he may forfeit his pardon, and binds 
him more and more to the performance of the important duty of forgiy=— 
ing his enemies. And, (4.) His charity is so ardent that it melts him, 
as it were, into the common mass of mankind. Bowing himself, there- 
fore, under all the enormous load of all the wilful trespasses which his 
fellow mortals, and particularly his relatives and his brethren, daily 
commit against God, he says, with a fervour that imperfect Christians 
seldom feel, Forgive us our trespasses, dee; “we are heartily sorry 
for our misdoings, [my own and those of my’ fellow sinners;] the 
remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burthen of them is into. 
lerable.”” Nor do we doubt but, when the spirit of mourning leads a 
numerous, assembly of supplicants into the vale of humiliation, the per- 
son who puts the shoulder of faith most readily to the common burden of 
sin, and heaves most powerfully in order to roll the enormous load into” 
the Redeemer’s grave, is the most perfect penitent—the most exac 
observer of the apostolical precept, “ Bear ye one another’s burdens, at 
so fulfil the law of Christ ;”’ and, of consequence, we do not seruple to sa 
that such person is the most perfect Christian in the whole assembly. 
If Mr., Hill consider these answers, we doubt not but he will confess) ‘ 
that his opposition to Christian perfection chiefly springs from his — 
inattention to our definition of it, which I once more sum up in these — 
comprehensive lines of Mr. Wesley :-— a ty 


O let me gain perfection’s height ! Mat 
O let me into nothing fall ! 
(As less than nothing in thy sighté,) 
And feel that Christ is all in all! ip 
VIII. Our opponents produce another plausible objection, which runs 
thus :—* It is plain from your account of Christian perfection that adult 7 


believers are free from sin, their hearts being purified by perfect faith, 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 503 


and filled with perfect love. Now sin is that which humbles us, and 
drivestus to Christ ; and therefore, if we were free from indwelling sm, 
we should lose a most powerful incentive to humility, which is the 
greatest ornaiment of a irue Christian.” 

—We answer, Sin never humbled any soul. Who has more sin than 
Satan? And who is prouder? Did sin make our first parents humble? 
If it did not, how do our brethren suppose that its nature is altered for 


‘the better? Who was humbler than Christ? But was he indebted to 
‘sin for his humility? Do we not see daily that the more sinful men are, 


the prouder they are also? Did Mr. Hill never observe that the holier a 
believer is, the humbler he shows himself? And what is holiness but 


the reverse of sin? If sin be necessary to make us humble and keep us 


near Christ, does it not follow that glorified saints, whom all acknow- 
ledge to be sinless, are all proud despisers of Christ? If humility is 


obedience, and if sin is disobedience, is it not as absurd to say that sin will 


maké us humble, i. e. obedient, as it is to affirm that rebellion will make 
us loyal, and adultery chaste? See we not sin enough, when we look ten 
or twenty years back, to humble us to the dust for ever, if sin can do 


' it? Need we plead for any more of it in our hearts and lives? If the 
‘sins of our youth do not humble us, are the sins of our old age likely to 
‘do it? If we contend for the life of the man of sin that he may subdue 


our pride, do we not take a large stride after those who say, Let us sin 
that grace may abound. Let us i | full of indwelling sin that 
humility may increase! What is, after all, the evangelical method of 
gettime humility? Is it not to look at Christ in the manger, in Gethse- 
mane, or on the cross; to consider him when he washes his disciples’ 
feet ; and obediently to listen to him when he says, “ Learn of me to be 
meek and lowly m heart?” Where does the Gospel plead the cause of 
the Barabbas, and the thieves within? Where does it say that they may 


indeed be nailed to the cross, and have “their legs broken,” but their 


life must be left whole within them, lest we should be proud of their 
death ? Lastly : what is indwelling sin but indwelling pride? At least, is 
not inbred pride one of the chief ingredients of indwelling sm? And how 
can pride be productive of humility? Cana serpent beget a dove? And 
will not men gather grapes from thorns, sooner than humility of heart 
from haughtiness of spirit ? 

1X. The strange mistake which I detect would not be so prevalent 
among our prejudiced brethren, if they were not deceived by the plausi- 
bility of the followimg argument :—“ When believers are humbled for a 
thing, they are humbled by it: but believers are humbled for sin; and 
therefore they are humbled dy sin.’ . 

The flaw of this argument is in the first proposition. We readily 


_ grant that penitents are humbled for sin; or, in other terms, that they 


humbly repent of sm; but we deny that ‘they are humbled by sm. To 
show the absurdity of the whole argument, I need only produce a 
sophism exactly parallel: “ When people are blooded for a thing, they 
are blooded by it: but people are sometimes blooded for a cold; and 
therefore people are sometimes blooded by a cold.” 

_ X. “We do not assert that all perfection is imaginary. Our mean- 
ing is, that all Christian perfection is in Christ; and that we are perfect 
in his person, and not in our own.” 


504 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


Awswer. If you mean by our being perfect only in Christ, that we _ 
can attain to Christian perfection no other way, than by being perfeetly 
grafted in him, the true vine; and by deriving, like vigorous branches 
the perfect. sap of his perfect righteousness, to enable us to bring forth 
fruit unto perfection, we are entirely agreed: for we perpetually assert 
that nothing but “Christ in us the hope of glory,” nothing but “ Christ 
dwelling in our hearts by faith,” or, which is all one, nothing but “the 
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, can make us free from the law 
of sin, and perfect us in love.” 

But as we never advanced that Christian perfection is attainable a 
other way than by a faith that “roots and grounds us” in Christ, we 
doubt some mystery of iniquity lies hid under these equivocal phrases: 
“ All our perfection is in Christ's person : we are perfect in him and not 
in ourselves.” om 

Should those who use them insinuate by such language that we need 
not, cannot be perfect, by an inherent personal conformity to od’s” 
holiness, because Christ is thus perfect for us; or should they mean 
that we are perfect in him, just as country freeholders, entirely strangers 
to state affairs, are perfect politicians in the knights of the shire who 
represent them in parliament; as the sick in a hospital are perfectly 
healthy in the physician that gives them his attendance; as the blind 
man enjoyed perfect sight in Christ, when he saw walking men like | 
moving trees; as the filthy leper was perfectly clean in the Lord, before’ 
he had felt the power of Christ’s gracious words, “I will, be thou 
clean ;” or, as hungry Lazarus was perfectly fed in the person of the 
rich man, at whose gate he lay starving; should this, I say, be their 
meaning, we are in conscience bound to oppose it, for the reasons con- 
tained in the following queries :— 

1. If believers are perfect, because Christ is perfect for them, — 
does the apostle exhort them to “go on to perfection ?” . 

2. If all our perfection be inherent in Christ, is it not strange that 
St. Paul should exhort us to “perfect holiness in the fear of God, by 
cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and*spirit?” Did not 
Christ perfect his own holiness? And will his personal sanctity be —_ 
perfect, till we have cleansed ourselves from all defilement? , 

3. If Christ be perfect for us, why does St. James say, “ Let potion ce 
have her perfect work,” that ye may be perfect? Is Christ’s perfection — 
suspended upon the perfect work of our patience ? “—? 

4. Upon the scheme which I oppose, what does St. Peter mean, — 
when he says, “ After ye have suffered awhile, the Lord make you per- — 
fect?” What has our suffering awhile to do with Christ’s perfection? 
Was not Christ “ made perfect through his own sufferings ” * 

5. If believers were perfect in Christ’s person, they would all be 
equally perfect. But is this the case? Does not St. John talk of some 
who are perfected, and of others who “are not yet made perfect in — 
love?” Beside, the apostle exhorts us to be perfect, not in Antinomian ~ 
notions, but “in all the will of God, and in every good work ;” and — 
common sense dictates, that there is some difference between our ae 
works and the person of Christ. . 

6. Does not our Lord himself show that his personal rieitesingell 
will by no means be accepted instead of our personal perfection, where 


4 


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LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 505 


the says, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, [or whose frurt 
neyer grows to any perfection, see Luke viii, 14,] my Father taketh 
away,” far from imputing to it his perfect fruitfulness ? 

7. In the nature of things can Christ’s perfection supply the want of 
that perfection which he calls us to? Is there not a more essential dif- 
ference between Christ’s perfection and that of a believer, than there is 
between the perfection of a rose and that of the grass of the field? 
between the perfection of a soaring eagle, and that of a creeping insect ? 
Tf our Lord is the head of the Church, and we are the members, is it 
not absurd to suppose that his perfection becomes us in every respect? 
Were I allowed to carry on a Scriptural metaphor, | would ask, Is not 
the perfection of the head very different from that of the hand? And 
do we not take advantage of the credulity of the simple, when we make 
them believe that an impenitent adulterer and murderer is perfect in 
Christ ; or, if you please, that a crooked leg and cloven foot are per- 
fectly’ handsome, if they do but somehow belong to a beautiful face ? 

8. Let us illustrate this a little more. Does not the Redeemer’s per- 
sonal perfection consist in his being Gop and man in one person ; in his 
being eternally begotten by the Father as the “Son of God ;” and unbe- 
gotten in time by a father, as “the son of man;” im his having * given 
his life a ransom for all ;” in his having “taken it up again; and his 
standing in the midst of the throne, able to save to the uttermost all that 
come unto God fhrough him?” Consider this, candid believer, and say 
if any man or angel can decently hope that such an mcommunicable 
perfection can ever fall to his share. 

9. As the Redeemer’s personal perfection cannot suit the redeemed, 
no more can the personal perfection of the redeemed be found in the 
Redeemer. A believer’s perfection consists in such a degree of faith 
as works by perfect love. And does not this high degree of faith chiefly 
imply uninterrupted self diffidence, self denial, self despair? A heart- 
felt, ceaseless recourse to the blood, merits, and righteousness of Christ ? 
And a grateful love to him, “because he first loved us,” and fervent 
charity toward all mankind “for his sake?” ‘Three things, these, 
which, in the very nature of things, either cannot be in the Saviour at 
all, or cannot possibly be in him in the same manner in which they 
must be in believers. 

10. Is not the doctrine of our being perfect in Christ’s person big 
with mischief? Does it not open a refuge of lies to the loosest ranters 
in the land? Are there none who say, We are perfect in Christ’s 
person? In him we have perfect chastity and honesty, perfect temper- 
ance and meekness ; and we should be guilty of Pharisaic insolence if 
we patched his perfection with the filthy rags of our personal holiness ? 
And has not this doctrine a direct tendency to set godliness aside, and 
to countenance gross Antinomianism ? 

Lastly. When our Lord preached the doctrine of perfection, did he 
not do it m such a manner as to demonstrate that our perfection must 
be personal? Did he ever say, “If thou wilt be perfect, only believe 
that I am perfect for thee?” On the contrary, did he not declare, “If 
thou wilt be perfect, sell what thou hast ; [part with all that stands in 
thy way ;] and follow me” in the way of perfection ? And again: “ Do 
good to them that hate you, that ye may be the children of your Father 


506 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


who is in heaven; for he sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust, &e, 
Be ye therefore perfeet, even as your Father who is in heayen is per- 
fect?” Who can read these words and not see that the perfection 
which Christ preached, is a perfection of holy dispositions, productive 
of holy actions in all his-followers? And that, of consequence, it is a 
personal perfection, as much inherent in us, and yet as much derives 
from him, and dependent upon him, as the perfection of our bodily 
health? ‘The chief difference consisting in this, that the pepe of 
our health comes to us from God in Christ, as the God of narur 
whereas our Christian perfection comes to us from God in Christ, as the 
God of Grace. 


SECTION Iv. 


Mr. Hill’s first argument against Christian perfection is taken from the 
ninth and fifteenth articles of the Church of England—These articles 
properly understood, are not contrary to that doctrine—That our 
Church holds it, is proved by thirteen arguments—She opposes Phari- 
saic, but not Christian perfection—Eight reasons are produced t 
show that it is absurd to embrace the doctrine of a death purgatory 
because our reformers and martyrs, in following after the perfection of 
humility, have used some unguarded expressions, which seem to bear 
hard upon the doctrine of Christian perfection. rc. 
In the preceding sections I have laid the axe at the root of some 

prejudices, and cut up a variety of objections. The controversial ld 

is cleared. The engagement may begin: nay, it is already begun ; for 

Mr. Hill, in his Creed for Perfectionists, and Mr. Toplady, in his Cavea 

against unsound Doctrines, have brought up, and fired at our doctrin 

two pieces of ecclesiastical artillery ;—the ninth and fifteenth articles 
of our Church: and they conclude that the contents of these doctrinal 
cannons absolutely demolish the perfection we contend for. The report 
of their wrong-pointed ordnance, and the noise they make about ou 
subscriptions are loud ; but that we need not be afraid of the shot, will 

I hope, appear from the following observations :— . 
The design of the fifteenth article of our Church is pointed out by the 

title, “« Of Christ alone without Sin.” From this title we conclude 

the scope and design of the article is not to secure to Christ the hoi 
of being alone cleansed from sin; because such an honour would be 
reproach to his original and uninterrupted purity, which placed him 

above the need of cleansing. Nor does the article drop the least 

xbout the impossibility of our being “ cleansed from sin” before w 

into the purgatory of the Calvinists: I mean the chambers of de 

What our Church intends, is to distinguish Christ from all mankind, 

especially from the Virgin Mary, whom the Papists assert to have 

always totally free from original and actual sin. Our Church does 
by maintaining, (1.) That Christ was born without the least tain 

original sin, and never committed any actual transgression. (2.) 

all other men, the Virgin Mary and the most holy believers not excepted, — 


> 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 50T 


are the very reverse of Christ in both these respects; all being con- 


ceived in original sin, and offending in many things, even after baptism,* 
and with all the helps which we have under the Christian dispensation 
to keep us “ without sin” from day to day. And, therefore, (3.) That 
“if we say we have no sin;” if we pretend, like some Pelagians, 
that we have no original sin; or if we intimate, like some Pharisees, 
that “we never did any harm in all our lives,” that is, that we have no 
aciual sin, “ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us ;” there 
being absolutely no adult person without sin in those respects, except 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 

That this is the genuine sense of the article appears, (1.) By the 
absurdity which follows from the contrary sentiment. For if these 
words, “ Christ alone without Sin,” are to be taken in an absolute and 
unlimited sense ; if the word alone entirely excludes all mankind, at all 
times ; if it is levelled at our being cleansed from sin, as well as at our 
having been always free from original and actual poilution ; if this is the 
case, I say, it is evident that not only fathers in Christ, but also Enoch 
and Elijah, St. John and St. Paul, are to this day tainted with sin, and 
must to all eternity continue so, lest Mr. Hill’s opinion of Christ alone 
without sin should not be true. ' 

2. Our sentiment is confirmed by the article itself, part of which 
runs thus :—“ Christ, in the truth of our nature, was made like unto 
us in all things, sin only excepted, from which he was clearly void, 
both in his flesh and in his spirit. He came to be a Lamb without 
spot; and sin, as St. John says, was not in him. But all we the 
rest, although baptized and born again in Christ, [i. e. although we 
have from our infancy all the helps that the Christian dispensation 
affords men to keep them without sin,] yet we offend in many things, 
[after our baptism,] and if we say, [as the above-mentioned Pelagians 

‘and Pharisees,] that we have no [original or actual] sin, [i. e. that we 
are like Christ, in either of these respects; our conception, infancy, 
childhood, youth, and age, being all taken into the account,] we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” 

Having thus opened the plain, rational, and Scriptural sense in which 
we subscribe to our fifteenth article, it remains to make a remark upon 
the ninth. 

Some bigoted Pelagians deny original sin, or the Adamic infection of 
our nature; and some bigoted Papists suppose that this infection is 
entirely done away in baptism: in opposition to both these, our Church 
prudently requires: our subscription to her ninth article, which asserts, 
(1.) That “the fault and corruption of our nature” is a melancholy 
reality : and, (2.) That this “ fault, corruption, or infection doth remain 
in them who are regenerated ;” that is, in them who are « baptized, or 
made children of God,” according to the Christian dispensation. For 


* The Rev. Mr. Toplady, in his Historic Proof, p. 235, informs us that a 
popish archbishop of St. Andrews condemned Patrick Hamilton to death, for 
holding among other doctrines, ‘‘ That children incontinent after baptism are 
sinners,” or, which is all one, that baptism does not absolutely take away original 
sin. This anecdote is important, and shows that our Church levels at a popish 
error the words of her articles, which Mr, Hill and Mr. Toplady suppose to be 
levelled at Christian perfection. 


508 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


every person who has attentively read our liturgy, knows that these ex. 
pressions, baptized, regenerated, and made a member of Christ, and @ 
child of God, are synonymous in the language of our Church. 
because we have acknowledged, by our subscription to our ninth articll 
that “the infection of.our nature” is not done away in baptism, but 
“does remain in them which are regenerate,” or baptized, Mr. Hiil 
thinks himself authorized to impose upon us the yoke of indwelling sin 
for life; supposing that we cannot be fair subseribers to that article, 
unless we renounce the glorious liberty of God’s children, and embrace 
the Antinomian gospel, which is summed up in these unguarded words 
of Luther, quoted by Bogatsky in his Golden Treasury :* “The sins of 
a Christian are for his good, and if he had no sin, he would not be so- 
well off; neither would prayer flow so well.” Can any thing be either 
more unscriptural or absurd? What unprejudiced person does not see” 
we may, with the greatest consistency, maintain that baptism does not 
remove the Adamic infection of sin, and that nevertheless this infection 
may be removed before death? 

Nevertheless, we are willing to make Mr. Hill all the concessions we 
can, consistently with a good conscience. If by “the infection of 
nature,” he understand the natural ignorance which has infected our 
understanding ; the natural forgetfulness which has affected our memory ; 
the inbred debility of all our mental powers, and the poisonous seeds of 
mortality which infect all men from head to foot, and hinder the strongest 
believers from serving God with all the fervour they would be capable 
of, were they not fallen from paradisiacal perfection, under the curse of 
a body sentenced to die, and “dead because of sin:” if Mr. Hill, T 
say, understand this by the “infection of nature,” we believe that such 
an infection, with all the natural, innocent appetites of the flesh, remains, 
not only in those whom the Scriptures call “ babes in Christ, » but a 
in “fathers ;” there being no adult believer that may not say, as well 
as Christ, Adam, or St. Paul, “I thirst. I am*hungry. I want a help- 
meet for me. I know but in part. I see darkly through a glass. 
groan, being burdened. He that marrieth sinneth not. It is better to 
marry than to burn,” &c. 

But if Mr. Hill, by “the infection of nature,” mean the sinful lusts 
of the flesh, such as drunkenness, gluttony, whoredom, &c; or, if he 
understand unloving, diabolical tempers, such as envy, pride, stubborn- 
ness, malice, sinful anger, ungodly jealousy, unbelief, fretfulness, impa- 
tience, hypocrisy, revenge, or any moral opposition to the will of God: 
if Mr. Hill, I say, understand this by “the infection of nature ;” and if 
he suppose that these evils must radically and necessarily remain in mi 
hearts of all believers (fathers in Christ not excepted) till death comes 
to “cleanse the thoughts of their hearts” by the inspiration of his ill- 
smelling breath, we must take the liberty of dissenting from him; and 
we produce the following arguments to prove that, whatever Mr. Hill 
may insinuate to the contrary, the Church of Enpland i is not against the © 
doctrine of evangelical perfection which we vindicate. ya 

I. Our Church can never be so inconsistent as to level her articles — 
against what she ardently prays for in her liturgy: but she ardently — 
prays for Christian perfection, or for perfect love in this life. Therefore 

* See the edition printed in London in 1773, p. 328. 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 509 


she is not against Christian perfection. The second proposition of this 
argument can alone be disputed, and I support it by the well-known 
collect m the communion service, “ Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts 
by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, 
and worthily magnify thy holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 
Here we see, (1.) The nature of Christian perfection ; it is perfect love. 
(2.) The seat of this perfect love, a heart cleansed from its own thoughts. 
(3.) The blessed effect of it, a worthy magnifying of God’s holy name. 
(4.) Its author, God, of whom the blessing is asked. (5.) The imme- 
diate mean of it, the inspiration of his Holy Spirit. And, lastly, the 
gracious procurer of it, our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Il. This vein of godly desire after Christian perfection runs through 
her daily service. In her confession she prays: “Restore thou them 
that are penitent, according to thy promises, &c, that hereafter we may 
live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of thy holy name.” 
Now, godliness, righteousness, and sobriety, being the sum of our duty 
toward God, our neighbour, and ourselves, are also the sum of Christian 
perfection. Nor does our Church absolve any but such as desire “ that 
the rest of their lives may be pure and holy, so that at the last they may 
come to God’s eternal joy ;” plainly intimating that we may get a pure 
heart, and lead a pure and holy life, without going into a death purga- 
tory ; and those who do not attain to purity of heart and life, that is, to 
perfection, are in danger of missing God’s eternal joy. , 

Ill. Hence it is that she is not ashamed to pray daily for sinless pu- 
rity in the Te Deum :—*« Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without 
sin,” that is, sinless ; for, I suppose, that the title of our fifteenth article, 
« Of Christ alone without Sin,” means, Of Christ alone sinless from his 
conception to his last gasp. This deep petition is perfectly agreeable to the 
collects for the ninth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth Sundays after 
Trinity : “Grant to us the Spirit to think and do always such things as 
be rightful, that we may¥ be enabled to live according to thy yill,” i. e. 
to live without sin. “We pray thee, that thy grace may always pre- 
vent and follow us, and make us to be continually given to all good 
works,” &e. “Grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of 
the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to 
follow thee.” “Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things 
direct and rule our hearts.” Again: “ May it please thee, that by the 
wholesome medicines of the docirine delivered by him, [Luke, the 
evangelist and physician of the soul,] all the diseases of our souls may 
be healed,” &c. (St. Luke’s Day.) “ Mortify and kill in us all vices, 
[and among them envy, selfishness, and pride,] and so strengthen us by 
thy grace, that by the imocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith 
unto death, we may glorify thy holy name,” &c. (The Innocents’ Day.) 
“Grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping thy commandmezts we 
may please thee both in will and deed.” (First Sunday after Trinity.) 
« Direct, sanctify, and govern both our hearts and bodies, in the ways 
of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments, that we may be 
preserved [in these ways and works] in body’and soul.” “Prevent us 
in‘all our doings, &c, and farther us with thy continual help; that in all 
our works, begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy 
name.” (Communion Service.) Once more: “ Grant that in all our 


510 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTTNOMIANISM. ' 


sufferings here on earth, &c, we may steadfastly look up to heaven, 
and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed ; and being filled — 
with the Holy Ghost, may learn to bless our persecutors by the example — 
of thy first maftyr,” &c. (St. Stephen’s Day.) It is worth our notice, ; 
that blessing our persecutors and murderers is the last, beatitude, the — 
highest instance of Christian perfection, and the most difficult of all the — 
duties, which, if we may believe our Lord, constitute us perfect in our 
sphere, “as our heavenly Father is perfect :” see Matt. v, 11, 44, 45, 48. 
IV. Perfect love, i. e. Christian perfection, instantaneously springs — 
from perfect faith: and as our Church would have all her members 
perfect in love, she requires them to pray thus for perfect faith, which ~ 
must be obtained in this life or never: “Grant us so perfectly, and 
without all doubt, to believe in thy Son Jesus Christ, that our faith in 
thy sight may never be reproved.” (St. Thomas’ Day.) 2 
V. Our Lord teaches us to ask for the highest degree of Christian 
perfection, where he commands us “when we pray to say, &c, Thy 
kingdom come ; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And our 
Church, by introducing this deep prayer in all her services, shows how 
greatly Mr. Hill is mistaken, when he supposes that she looks upon our 
doctrine of Christian perfection as “ shocking.” 
Should this gentleman object that although our Church bids us pray © 
for Christian perfection in the above-cited collects, and in our Lord’s ~ 
prayer, yet she does not intimate that these deep prayers may be an- 
swered in this life: I oppose to that argument not only the word on 
earth, which she so frequently mentions in the Lord’s prayer, but also 
her own words: “ Everlasting God, who art more ready to hear than ~ 
we to pray, and art wont to give more than we desire, &c, pour down — 
upon us the abundance of thy mercy,” &c. (Twelfth Sunday after 
Trinity.) . Mr. Hill must therefore excuse us, if we side with our praying — 
Church, and are not ashamed to say, with St. Paul, “Glory be to him — 
that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or” 
think, according to the power that worketh in us,” Eph. iii, 20. 2 
Vi. That our Church cannot reasonably be against Christian perfec- | 
tion, I farther prove thus: what the Church of England recommends as 
the end of baptism, can never be contrary to her doctrine: but she ~ 
recommends a “death unto sin,” or Christian perfection, as the end of 
baptism; therefore she cannot be against Christian perfection. The 
second proposition, which alone is disputable, I prove by these words of 
her catechism: “ What is the inward or spiritual grace in baptism? 
A death unto sin, and new birth unto righteousness.” Hence she prays 
at the grave, “ We beseech thee to raise us from the death of sin to the ~ 
life of righteousness, that when we shall depart this life, we may rest in 
him,” {Christ.] Now, that a death to sin is the end of baptism, and 
that this end is never fully answered till this death has fully taken place, . 
is evident by the following extract from our baptismal office: “ Grant 
that the old Adam in this person may be so buried that the new may be — 
raised up in him.” Grant that all carnal affections [and consequently 
all the carnal mind and all inbred sin] may die in him, and that all things 
belonging to the Spirit may live and grow in him.” “Grant that the 
person now to be baptized may receive the fulness of thy grace. Grant 
that he being dead to sin, and living to righteousness, and being buried 


‘ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMTANISM. 511 


with Christ in his death, may crucify the old man, and utterly abolish the 
whole body of sin.” How can we maintain, with our Church, that we 
are to crucify, mortify, (i. e. kill,) and utterly abolish the whole body of 
sin ; so as to be dead to sin, and to have the old Adanf buried in this 
life ; and yet hold, with Mr. Hill, that this « whole body of sin,” which 
we are utterly to abolish, is to remain wholly and utterly unabolished 
till death come to abolish it? 

Vil. Our Church is not agaist that end of the Lord’s Supper which 
she constantly inculcates: but that end of the Lord’s Supper which she 
constantly inculcates is Christian perfection: therefore our Church is 
Rot against Christian perfection. The second proposition, which alone 
needs progf, is founded upon these deep words of our Communion Ser- 
vice :—*“ Grant us to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to 
drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, 
and our souls washed through his precious blood, and that we may 
evermore duell in him and he in us.” ‘These words express the height 
of Christian perfection, nor has the Lord’s Supper had its full end upon 
us till that prayer is answered. 

- VIEL. Our Church is not against what she considers the end of Christ’s 


_ Bativity, and of his being presented in the temple : but what she considers 


as that end, is Christian perfection : therefore she is not against Christian 
perfection. ‘The second proposition of this argument is founded, (1.) 
Upon the proper preface to Christmas day in the Communion Service :-— 
« Christ, &c, was made very man, &c, without spot of sin, to make us 
clean from all sin.” And, (2.) Upon these words of the collect for the 
presentation of Christ in the temple :—“ We humbly beseech thee, that 
as thy only begotten Son was presented in the temple in substance of 
our fiesh, so we may bé presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts.” 

IX. The same argument helds good with respect to our Lord’s cir- 
cumcision, his keeping of the passover with unleavened bread, his 

ascending into heaven,*and his sending the Comforter from thence. 
That, according to our Church, the end of these events is our Christian 
perfection, appears by the following extracts from her collects :—“ Grant 
us the true circumcision of the Spirit, that our hearts and all our members 
being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things 
obey,” &c. (The Circumcision of Christ.) “Grant us so to put away 
the leayen of malice and wickedness, that we may alway serve thee in 
pureness of living and truth.” (First Sunday afier Easter.) “Grant, &e, 
that we may also in heart and mind thither [to heaven] ascend, and with 
him [Christ] continually diwell,” &c. (Ascension Day.) “ Grant us, by 
the same Spirit, to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to 
Fejoice in his holy comfort.” ( Whitsuntide.) 

X. Our Church cannct reasonably oppose what she ardently wishes 
to all her communicants, and what she earnestly asks for and strongly 
recommends to all her members: but she thus wishes, asks, and recom- 
mends deliverance from all sin, and perfect charity, that is, Christian 
perfection: and therefore she cannot be against Christian perfection. 
The second proposition is founded, (1.) Upon these words of the absolu- 
tion which she gives to all communicants :—“ Almighty God, &c, pardon 

and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all 
Boodness:” (2.) Upon her collect for Quinquagesima Sunday :—“ Send 


512 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


thy Holy Ghost, ‘and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of 
charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues :” (St. Paul calls it 
“the bond of perfection.”) And, (3.) Upon the definition which she: 
gives us of charity, in her homilies :—* Charity,” says she, “ is to love 
God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our power and strength. 
With all our heart; that is to say, that our heart, mind, and study be 
set to believe his word, and to love him above all things that we love best 
in heaven or in earth. With all our soul; that is to say, that our chief 
joy and delight be set upon him, and our whole life given to his service, 
With all our power ; that is to say, that, with our hands and feet, with 
our eyes and ears, our mouths and tongues, and with all our parts and 
powers, both of body and soul, we should be given to the keeping of his 
commandments. This is the principal part of charity, but it is not the ~ 
whole ; for charity is also to love every man, good and evil, friend and _ 
foe, whatsoever cause be given to the contrary.” (Hom. on Charity.) 
“ Of charity [St. John] says, He that doth keep God’s word and com- 
mandment, in ‘ him is truly the perfect love of God, &e. And St. John 
wrote not this as a subtle saying, &c, but as a most certain and necessary 
truth.” (Homily of Faith, part ii.) “ Thus it is declared unto you what 
true charity or Christian love is, &c, which love, whosoever keepeth, - 
not only toward God, whom he is bound to love above all things, but also” 
toward his neighbour, as well friend as foe, it shall surely keep him from 
all offence of God, and just offence of man.” (Homily on Charity, part ii.) 
Again: “ Every man persuadeth himself to be in charity ; but let him 
examine his own heart, his life and conversation, and he shall truly 
discern whether he be in perfect charity or not. For he that followeth 
not his own will, but giveth himself earnestly to God, to do all his will 
and commandment, he may be sure that he loveth God above all things, 
or else surely he loveth him not, whatsoever he pretend.” (Homily on 
Charity.) Once more: perfect “patience careth not what, nor how 
much it suffereth, nor of whom it suffereth, whether of friend or foe, but 
studieth to suffer innocently. Yea, he in whom perfect charity is, careth 
so little to revenge, that he rather studieth to do good for evil, according 
to the most perfect example of Christ upon the cross. Such charity and 
love as Christ showed in his passion, should we bear one to another, if 
we will be his true servants. If we love but them that love us, what 
great thing do we do? We must pe perfect in our charity, even as our 
Father in heaven is perfect.” (Homily for Good Friday.) dl 

XI. That state which our Church wants all her priests to bring their 
flocks to is not a “ shocking” or chimerical state: but she wants all her 
priests to bring all their flocks to “ perfectness in Christ,” that is, to 
Christian perfection: and therefore the state of Christian perfection is 
neither shocking nor chimerical. ‘The minor, which alone is contestable, 
rests upon this awful part of the charge which all her bishops give to her 
priests :—* See that you never cease your labour, care, and dili 
until you have done all that lieth in you to bring all such as shall be 
committed to your charge unto that agreement of faith, and that ripeness 
and perfectiess of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you 
for error in religion, « or viciousness in life.” (Ordin. Office. 

XII. Nor is our Church less strict with the laity than with the clergy; 
for she receives none into her congregation but such as profess a deter — 


, LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 513 


mination of coming up to Christian perfection. Accordingly, all her 
members have solemnly promised and vowed by their sponsors at their 
baptism, and in their own persons when they were confirmed by the 
bishop: (1.) “To renounce the devil and all his works,"the pomps and 
vanities of this wicked world, without reserve, and all in sinful lusts of 
the flesh. (2.) To believe all the articles of the Christian faith. And, 
(3.) To keep God’s holy will and commandments, and walk in the same 
all the days of their life.” And is not this vowing to “ perfect holiness 
in the fear of God?” Does the first part of this sacred engagement 
leave any room for a moment’s agreement with the devil, the world, or 
the flesh? Does the second make the least allowance for one doubt 
with respect to any one article of the Christian faith? Or the third for 
one wilful breach of God’s commandments? Again: are not these 
commandments thus summed up in our Church catechism :—“I learn 
in them my duty toward God, which is to love him with all my heart ; 
and my duty toward my neighbour, which is to love him as myself?” 
Is not this perfect love, or Christian perfection? And have we not 
“vowed to walk in the same all the days of our life?” As many 
Churchmen, therefore, as make conscience of keeping their baptismal 
yow, must not only “go on, but attain unto perfection :” and if there 
have been no perfect Christians in our Church, all her members have 
died in the actual breach of the awful promise which they made in their 
baptism: a supposition too shocking either to make or allow. 

If you ask, Where are those perfect Churchmen or Christians? I 
answer, that if the perfect love that keeps the co:iwmandments is not attain- 
able, our baptismal vow is absurd and detestabie ; for it is both irrational, 
and very wicked, to vow things absolutely i rapossible. But this is not 
all: upon that supposition- the Bible, which makes such frequent mention 
of the perfect and of perfection; is not better than a popish legend ; for 
that book ought to rank among religious romances, which recommends 
imaginary things as if they were indubitable realities. So sure then as 
the Bible is true, there are, or may be perfect Chaktans; ; but 

Virtutem incolumem odimus, 

Sublatam ex oculis querimus, invidi. 
« While we honour dead saints, we call those who are alive enthusiasts, 
hypocrites, or heretics.” It is not proper, therefore, to expose them to 
the darts of envy and malice. And suppose living witnesses of perfect 
love were produced, what would be the consequence? Their testimony 
would be excepted against by those who disbelieve the doctrine of Chris- 
tian perfection, just as the testimony of the believers, who enjoy the 
sense of their justification, is rejected by those who do not believe that 
a clear experience of the peace and pardoning love of God is attainable 
in this life. If the original, direct perfection of Christ himself was hor- 
ribly blackened by his bigoted opposers, how could the derived, reflected 
perfection of his members escape the same treatment from men, whose 
hearts are tinctured with a degree of the same bigotry ? 

Add to this, that in order to harden unbelievers, “the accuser of the 
brethren” perpetually obtrudes upon the Church, not only false witnesses 
of pardoning grace, but also vain pretenders to perfect love: for he 
knows that by putting off as many counterfeits as he possibly can, he 
wiil give the enemies of the truth room to say that there is in the Church 

Vou. II. 33 


514 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


no gold purified seven times,—no coin truly stamped with the king’: 
image, perfect love; and bearing the royal inscription, “ Holiness unt 
the Lord.”* ’ : 
Therefore, instead of saying that this or the other eminent believe 
has attained Christian perfection, we rest the cause-upon the experienc 
of St. John, and of those with whom that apostle could say, “There is 
no occasion of stumbling in him that loveth. Herein is our love mac 
perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because 
[with respect to holiness] as He is [in his human nature] so are we it 
this world—pure, undefiled, and filled with perfect love ; with this differ. 
ence nevertheless, that he is in the kingdom of glory, and we in the 
kingdom of grace; he has a glorified, and we a corruptible body ; he 
has the original perfection of a tree, and we the derived perfection of 
branches growing upon it. Or, to use another comparison, he shine 
with the communicative perfection of a pure, bright, unextinguishab 
fire; and we with a borrowed, and yet inherent perfection of a coa 
entirely lighted. The burning mineral was black, cold, and filthy, bes 
fore it was impregnated with the perfection of the fire; it continues 
bright, hot, and pure, only so long as it remains im the fire that kindled 
it: for if it fall from it by any accident, the shining perfection which it 
had acquired gradually vanishes, and it becomes a filthy cinder, th 
black emblem of an apostate. So true is that saying of our Lord, 
“Without me [or rather separate from me] ye can do nothing ;” ye can 
neither get, nor keep light or heat, knowledge or love. But when we 
live not, and Ghrist liveth in us; when our life is hid with Christ 1 
God, when we dwell in God, and God dwells in us; then it is that our 
love is made perfect, and that, loving one another even as Christ hath 
loved us, as he is loving, “so are we in this world,” 1 John iy, 17. 
Such was the avowed experience of fathers in Christ in the apostoli 
times, and such it undoubtedly is also in our days. Nor can I persuade 
myself that our Church trifles with her children when she describes the 
perfect Christian thus, in our Homily for Good Friday :—* He in whon 
perfect charity is, careth so little to revenge, that he rather studieth to 
do good for evil, according to the most perfect example of Christ upon 
the cross.” oe 
XI. If Mr. Hill reply, that our Church speaks there of a mere non 
entity ; and that we can never have a grain of perfect charity in this 
life, because the old leaven of indwelling sin will always corrupt 
sweetness of our tempers before God; J answer his objection by fp 
ducing my last proof, that our Church holds the very doctrine for wh 
we are called perfectionists. Hear her pressing perfect love and pur 
(1.) Upon all her communicants :—“ Have a lively and steadfast 
in Christ, &c, and be in perfect charity with all men.” (Com. Office. 


* Among the professors, who have lately set up as witnesses of perfect love, — 
Tam not a little surprised to find Mr. Hill himself. This gentleman, who 
treated Mr. Wesley with such severity, for standing up in defence of perfect Ii 
or Christian perfection, most solemnly ranks himself among the perfect lovers of 
their neighbours, yea, of their adversaries! Hear him make his astonishing pro- 
fession before the world, at the end of his pamphlet called, The yr meee - 
monished. ‘‘I most solemniy declare,” says he, ‘‘that I am in perfect cha 
with Dr. Adams, as well as with you, sir, my unknown antagonist.” I never 
heard a perfectionist make so solemn and so public a profession of perfect love. 


F eee 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 515 


And, (2.) Upon all her feeble children :—* Though your power be 
weak,” says she to them, “yet Christ is risen again to strengthen you 
in your battle: his Holy Spirit shall help your infirmities. In trust of 
his mercy take you in hand to purge the leaven of sin, that corrupteth 
and soureth the sweetness of our life before God; that ye may be as 
new and fresh dough, void of all sour leaven of wickedness ; so shall ye 
show yourselves to be sweet bread to God, that he may have his delight 
in you.” (Hom. on the Resur.) 

All the preceding arguments support our sense of the ninth and fif- 
teenth articles; and if Mr. Hill urge that our Church contradicts herself, 
and sometimes pleads for Christian imperfection and a death purgatory ; 
we reply, that, supposing the charge were well grounded, yet we ought 
rather to follow her, when she soberly follows Scripture, than when she 
hastily follows inconsistent Augustine. But we would rather hope that 
when she speaks of human depravity in a manner which seems to bear 
hard upon the preceding quotations, it is either when she speaks of 
human depravity in general, or when she inculcates the perfection of 
humility; or when she opposes the feigned perfection of those whom 
she ironically calls “proud, just, perfect, and holy Pharisees.” (Hom. 
on the Misery of Man.) From these and the like words, therefore, we 
have as much reason to conclude that she renounces true Christian holi- 
ness, as to infer that she decries true Christian perfection. Beside, the 
delusion of those Pharisees, who have missed a perfection of evangelical 
righteousness and humility, and have attained a perfection of self right- 
eousness and pride, is so horrible and so diametrically*opposite to the 
spirit of Christianity, that our reformers deserve to be excused, if they 
have sometimes opposed that error in an unguarded manner ; especially 
as they have so clearly and so frequently asserted the glorious liberty 
of God’s children. 

I shall close this vindication of the Church of England with some 
remarks upon her “ martyrs,” whom Mr. Hill produces also in his creed, 
to keep the doctrine of Christian imperfection in countenance. 

1. If any of our martyrs, speaking of his converted, renewed, and 
sanctified state, said, “I am all sin,” or words to that purpose, he spoke 
the words of unguarded humility, rather than the words of evangelical 
soberness: for a man may have grace and zeal enough to burn for one 
truth, without having time and prudence enough properly to investigate 
and state every truth. 

2. In our state of weakness, the very perfection of humility may 
betray an injudicious martyr into the use of expressions which seem to 
clash with the glorious liberty of God’s children; just as an excessive 
love for our friends may betray us into an injudicious and teasing 
officiousness. 

3. When a martyr considers himself in his fallen state in Adam, or 
in his former state of disobedience, he may say, “I am all sin,” in the 
very same sense in which St. Paul said, “I am the chief of sinners.” 
But allow him time t6 explain himself, and he will soon give you to 
understand that he “rejoices in the testimony of a good conscience, 
purged from dead works to serve the living God;” and that, far from 
harbouring any sin in himself, he is determined to “strive against sin in 


516 | LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


others, resisting unto blood.” And is not such a disposition as 5 this 
of the highest steps in the ladder of Christian perfection ? 4 
4, Hence it appears that the unguarded expressions of our martyz 
were levelled at Pharisaic pride, or at absolute perfection, and not 
Christian perfection. Like some pious Calvinists in our days, the 
embraced Christian perfection in deed, while, through misapprehension 
they disclaimed it in word. And therefore their speeches against t 
glorious liberty of God’s children, show. only that Christian perfection F 
a perfection of humility aad love, and not a perfection of wisdom ant 
knowledge. 
5. If it can be proved that any of those who rank among our martyr 
died full of indweiling sin, I will not scruple to say that he died a bigo 
and not a martyr; for to die full of indwelling sin is to die full of secre 
obstinacy and uncharitableness ; and St. Paul declares that were an 
apostle himself to “give his body to be burned” in such a wane mn. 
“it would profit him nothing.” ‘d 
6. As many brave Englishmen have laid down their lives in the field 
of battle, to defend their country against the French, without being pi 
perly acquainted with the liberties and boundaries of the British empil res 
so many Pfotestants have laid down their lives in Smithfield, to defen 
their religion against the Papists, without being acquainted with all 
landmarks which divide the land of spiritual Israel from that of the 
Philistines, and perfect Christianity from Antinomian dotages. 
7. The Jews can produce their maftyrs as well as the Protestants. 
The Maccabees, for example, died entirely satisfied with the Mo 
covenant, and strangers to the transcendent glory of the Christian dis- 
pensation. But is this a sufficient reason for preferring Judaism to 
Christianity? Yes, if Mr. Hill be in the right, when he decries the 
doctrine of perfect faith and perfect love, and imposes upon us the doe. 
trine of a death purgatory, because some good men formerly died with 
out having clear views of the doctrine of Christian perfection; thoug! 
like men who eat honey in the dark, they tasted its sweetness, am 
delightfully experienced its power. a 
8. To conclude: I am persuaded that were all our reformers anc 
martyrs alive, none of them would object to this argument, which sums 
up the doctrine of the Church of England with respect to purgatory; 
“If death cleanseth us from indwelling sin, it is not Christ’s blood 
applied by the Spirit through faith. But the only purgatory whe 
we [Christian men] trust to be saved, is the death and blood of Chi 
which, if we apprehend it with a true and steadfast faith, purgeth 
cleanseth us from all our sins,‘ The blood of Christ,’ says St. 
‘hath cleansed us from all sin.” (Homily on Prayer, part iii.) 
fore. the doctrine, that “death, &c, cleanseth us from all indwel 
sin,” or the doctrine of a death purgatory, is as contrary to the doet 
of our Church as to that of St. John. 


’ > 


4 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 517 


SECTION V. 


Mr. Hill intimates that the apostles were imperfectionists—St. Peter and 
St. James, far from pleading for a death purgatory, stand up for 
Christian perfection. 

Wuew Mr. Hill has so unadvisedly brought the Church of England 
against us, it is not surprising to see him press four apostles, “ Peter, 
Paul, James, and John,” into the field to “cut up,” (as he calls it,) 
“root and branch, my favourite doctrine of perfection.” Never were 
these holy men set upon a more unholy piece of work. Methinks I 
hear them say, Let Mr. Hill rank us with the Gibeonites : let him make 
us “ hewers of wood” to the congregation for ever: but let him not set 
us upon cutting up, root and branch, the lovely and fruitful tree of 
Christian perfection. Uappily for that rare tree, Mr. Hill only pro- 
duces the names of the apostolic woodmen, while we produce their aze, 
and show that they lay it at the root of Antinomianism; a deadly tree 
this, which is, to our favourite tree, what the fatal tree in paradise was 
to the tree of life. Mr. Hill appeals first to Peter; let then Peter first 
answer for himself. . . 

1. Where does that apostle plead for Christian imperfection, and a 
death purgatory? Is it where he says, “ As He who has called you is 
holy : so be-ye HoLy IN ALL manner of conversation. Seeing you have 
\ purified your souls, &c, love ‘one another with a PURE HEART FER- 
ventiy. Christ left us an example, that ye should follow his steps; 
who did no sin—who bare our sins, that we, being DEAD To sty, should 
live to righteousness: forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in 
the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind; for he that hath suffered 
in the flesh, hath ceased from sim. The God of all grace, &c, after 
that ye have suffered awhile, make you perrect.” Had Peter been 
against our doctrine, is it probable that he would thus haye excited 
believers to attain perfection; wishing it them, as we wish our flocks 
“the peace of God which passes all understanding ?” 

If that apostle pleads not for the necessary indwelling of sin in his 
first epistle, doth he do it in the second? Is it where he says, that 
“ exceeding great and precious promises are given us, that by these we 
might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the pollution 
that is in the world through lust?” Is there indwelling sin in the Divine 
nature? And can those people, whose hearts are still full of sin and 
indwelling corruption, be said to “ have escaped the pollution that is in 
the world through lust?” Might not a man, whose lungs are still full 
of dangerous ulcers, be said with as much propriety to have escaped 
the misery that is in the world through consumptions? Is it where St. 
Peter describes Christian perfection, and exhorts believers to attain it, 
or to rise higher in it, by adding with “all diligence to faith virtue, to 
virtue knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, 
and charity,” the ke¥ of the arch, and the bond of perfection? Is it 
where he states the difference between fallen believers, weak believers, 
and perfect Christians ; hinting that the first “ Lack these things,” i. e. 
Christian graces ; that “ these things are in” the second: and that they 
“,sounpD” in the third? Or is it where he bids “ us be diligent that we 


518 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, 


may be found of God in peace, without spot and blameless ?” “orm my 
part I do not see here the shadow of a plea for the root of every evil ix 
the hearts of believers till they die, any more than for the fruit of adul. 
tery, murder, and incest in their lives till they go hence. © 
But what principally strikes us in Mr. Hill’s appeal to St. Peter is, 
that although Peter was naturally led by his subject to speak of the 
necessary indwelling of sin in our hearts during the term of life, if that 
doctrine had been true, yet he does not,so much as drop one hint about 
it. The design of his first epistle was, undoubtedly, to confirm believe 
under the fiery trials which their faith meets with. “You are kept,” 
says he, “ by the power of God, through [obedient] faith unto salvation. 
wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season (if need be) ye are 
in heaviness, through manifold temptations.” What a fair opportuni ty 
had Peter to say here, without an if need be, “ You must be in heavi 
ness, not only through manifold temptations, but also through the rema 3 
ing corruptions of your hearts: the Canaanites and wild beasts must 
still dwell in the land, to be goads in your sides, and thorns in your eyes 
or you would grow proud and careless ; your heart leprosy must clea 
to you, as Gehazi’s leprosy cleaved to him. Death radically cured oa 
and nothing but death can radically cure you. ‘Till then, your heads 
“must remain full of imputed righleousness, and your hearts full “~ 7 
dwelling sin.” But, happily for the honour of Christianity, this A 
nomian, this impure gospel has not the least countenance from St. Peter Bly 
and he cuts up the very roots of it where he says, “ Who shall harm 
you, if you be followers of that which is good? Commit the keepi og 
of your souls unto God in well doing. ['The very reverse of sinning.] 
You are his daughters, [the daughters of him to whom God said, Walk 
before me, and ‘be thou perfect, | so long as ye DO WELI, and are not 
AFRAID with any amazement,” that is, so long as your conduct and tem- 
pers become the Gospel. And every body knows that a man’s temper 
are always as his heart; and that, if his heart be “ full of evil,” his 
tempers cannot be “ full of goodness,’ ? Rom. xy, 14. 
Il. If St. Peter, the first of Mr. Hill’s witnesses, does not say one 
word to countenance Antinomianism, and to recommend Christian i i 
perfection ; let us see if St. James pleads for Baal in the hearts, any 
more than for Baal in the lives of perfect believers. Turn to his epis si 
O ye that thirst after holiness! To your comfort you will find, that in 
the first chapter | he shows himself a bold asserter of Christian perfection. 
“Let patience,” says he, “have her perrecr work, that ye may be 
perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” He speaks the same language in 
other places: “ Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and con- 
TINUETH THEREIN, he, being a doer of the work, shall be blessed in his 
deed,’ ” And again : “ If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect 
man.” Nor is it difficult to demonstrate from his second chapter, 
pee believers, or perfect Christians, “keep the royal, Sy 
of liberty ;” and that those who “break it in one point are” in a ¢ 
plorable case. 

IfMr. Wesley had written an epistle to Antinomian believers, to make 
them go on to Christian perfection, could he have expressed himself in — 
a ply manner than St. James does in the following passages?— 
“Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned, [or 

3 


. : 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 519 
o 


damned,| James v, 9. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He 
that judgeth his brother, judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, 
thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, 
who is able fo save and to destroy” [those believers who keep or break 
his royal law,] James iv, 11, 12. Again: “If ye FULFIL THE ROYAL 
LAw, according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- 
self, ye Do wei: but [if ye do not fulfil it] if ye have respect to per- 
Sons, ye commit sin. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet 
offend [i. e. commit sin] in one point, he is guilty of all, &c. So speak 
ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty,” 
James ii, 8, &c. 

What follows demonstrates that fallen believers, if they do not repent 
and rise to the state of Christian perfection, will be condemned for one 
sin. St. James properly instances in the sin of uncharitableness, be- 
cause it is directly contrary to our Lord’s new commandment of loving 
one another as he has loved us, and because charity is the fulfilling of 
“the royal law, and the bond of perfection.” ‘Can faith save him” 
[the uncharitable believer ?] says St. James. “Ifa brother or sister be 
naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you [believers] say, Be ye 
warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which 
are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so, faith, if it hath not 
works, /and of consequence, the fallen believer, if he has sin unrepented of, ] 
isdead.” Sucha one “is of the devil, for he committeth sin, and sin is the 

ion of the law of libefty, by which he shall be judged, yea, by 
which he shall have judgment without mercy, that has (thus) showed no 
mercy ;” whether he sinned negatively by not relieving his poor brother 
in deed, though he gave him good words; or whether he did it positively, 
by “having respect to persons, or by grudging against his brother :” com- 
pare James ii, 13, &c, with 1 John i, 4, &c, to the end of both chap- 
ters, which are~two strong~batieries raised on purpose to defend the 
doctrine of Christian perfection, and to demolish the doctrine of Chris- 
tian imperfection, which is all one with Antinomianism. 

Should it be objected, that, “at this rate, no Christian believer is safe, 
fill he has obtained Christian perfection :” we reply, that all Christian 
believers are safe, who either stand in it, or press after it. And if 
they do neither, we are ready to prove that they rank among fallen 
believers, and are in as imminent danger of bemg “spued out of 
Christ’s mouth,” as the Laodiceans were. Let Mr. Hill candidly read 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of St. Peter, and the 
First of St. John, and let him doubt of it if he can. 

Should Mr. Hill object that « St. James himself says, In many things 
we offend all ; and that this one saying abundantly proves that he was 
a strong imperfectionist ;” I beg leave to involve my honoured opponent 
in the following dilemma:—dAre the offences, of which St. James 
speaks, involuntary ? .Or are they voluntary? If Mr. Hill says, “They 
are involuntary,” I answer, Then they are not proper breaches of *the 
law of liberty,” which St. James preaches; because that law curses us 
for no involuntary offences ; and therefore such offences, (like St. Baul’s 
reproving of the high priest more sharply than he would have done, 
had hé known what high dignity his unjust judge was invested with,) 
such offences, I say, are not sins acrording to the royal and evangelical 


520 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


law of our Neldsaelans and therefore they do not prove that all be. — 
lievers remain full of indwelling sin till death. If Mr. Hill reply, that _ 
“the many offences, of which St. James speaks, are voluntary offences, 
and therefore real breaches of the law of liberty ;” I answer, that this — 
genuine sense of the words, taken in connection with the context, con- | 
firms our doctrine of Christian perfection, and our opposition to Anti- 
nomianism ; and I prove it thus :— 1 

The text and context run thus :—“My brethren, be not many mas- — 
ters ; [i. e. lord it not over one another ; 3 knowing that we [who do so] 
shall receive the greater condemnation” if we do not learn humility. 
“JT say we, because I would not have you think that God our Judge isa 
respecter of persons, and will spare an apostle, who breaks the law of — 
liberty and does not repent, any more than he would spare you. For — 
if [ represented God as a partial Judge, Judas’ greater condemnation 
would prove me mistaken. And I insist the more upon this awful doc- 
trine, because ‘in many things we offend all,’ especially im word, till 
we are made peewee in love, that ‘love which is the fulfilling of the ~ 
law,’ and enables us to ‘keep our tongue as it were with a bridle’ all 
the day long.” If Mr. Hill ask, by w hat means I can show that this is 
really St. Jame? meaning ; I reply, By that plain rule of divinity and 
criticism, which bids us take the beginning of a verse in connection 
with the end. And if we do this here, we find the doctrine of Chris- 
tian perfection in this very text, thus :—“ We shall receive the greater 
damnation” if we do not repent and cease tor“ be many masters ; for 
in many things we from time to time offend all,” especially by our words, 
till we are perfected in love. “If any man offend not in word, the 
same is, what each of us should be, a perfect man, and able also to 
bridle his whole body,” James iii, 1, 2. So certain, therefore, as there 
are men able to bridle their tongue, and their whole bodies, there are 
men perfect in the body, perfect before death, according to the agai 
contained in this controverted passage of St. James. 

«But St. James says also, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to 
envy, James iv, 5.” ' 

I reply, 1. It is usual for modest teachers to rank themselves with 
the persons, of whom they say something disagreeable: and this they 
do to take away the harshness of their doctrine,and to make way for 
the severity of their charges. Thus Peter writes: “The time past of 
our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when — 
we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquet- — 
ings, and abominable idolatries ;” though it is evident that Peter, a poor, — 
industrious, godly Jew, never “ walked in abominable idglatries, working 
the will of the Gentiles.” Now the same delicacy of charity, which — 
made St. Peter rank himself with heathens, who walked in drunkenness, — 
whoredom, and gross idolatry, makes St. James rank himself with the — 
= Christians, who are possessed by an envious spirit. : 

2. Nay, St. James himself, using the same figure of speech, says, 

“The tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, &c; therewith 
curs@we men, who are made after the similitude of God.” But would — 
it be reasonable to infer from these words that his tongue was still “full — 
of deadly poison,” and that he therewith continued to curse his neigh- 
bour! ‘Thereforevall that is implied in his words about envy, is that, till 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 521 


we are made perfect in the “ charity which envieth not, and is not puffed 
up, the spirit that is in us lusteth to envy” and pride. And that we, 
who have not vet attained Christian perfection, need not be always 
envious and proud, is evident from the very next words, “ But he giveth 
more grace, wherefore he says, God resisteth the proud, envious man, 
but giveth grace to the humble: resist the devil and he will flee from 
you; purify your hearts, ye double minded: be afflicted, and mourn, 
and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into 
heaviness.” So severe was St. James to those adulterers and adulter- 
esses, those genteel believers, who stopped short of Christian perfection, 
loved the world, and envied-one another! Therefore, to press him into 
the service of Solifidianism, is as. rash an attempt as to call his epistle 
an epistle of straw, worthy of being committed to the flames: and (if 
the preceding remarks are-just) Mr. Hill is as much mistaken, when 
he appeals to St. James, as when he quotes St. Peter, in defence of 
Christian imperfection. 


SECTION VI. . 

St. Paul preached Christian perfection, and professed to have attained 
it—A view of the different sorts of perfection which belong to the dif- 
ferent dispensations of grace and glory—The holy child Jesus’ im- 
perfection in knowledge and suffering, and his growing in wisdom 
and stature, and in favour with God and man, were entirely consistent 
with his perfection of humble love. 


Sr. Paut’s name appears upon Mr. Hill’s list of witnesses against 
Christian perfection ; but it is without the apostle’s consent: for Peter 
and James did not plead more strenuously for the glorious liberty of 
God’s children, than St. Paul. Nay, he professed to have attained it, 
and addressed fathers in Christ as persons that were pariakers of it 
together with himself. “We speak wisdom,” says he, “among them 
that are perfect,” 1 Cor. ii,6. “Let us, as many as be perfect, be thus 
minded,” Phil. ini, 15. 

Nor did St. Paul fancy that Christian perfection was to be confined 
to the apostolic order: for he wanted all believers to be like him in this 
respect. Hence it is, that he exhorted the Corinthians “to perfect 
holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor. vii, 1; to be perfect, 2 Cor. xiii, 11; 
to be perfectly joined together in the same mind,” 1 Cor. i, 10; and 
showed them the perfect, or “ more excellent way,” 1 Cor. xiii. He told 
the Ephesians, that “God gave pastors for the perfecting of the saints, 
till all come in the unity of tke faith,—unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,” Eph. iv, 12,13. He 
“taught every man, &c, that he might present every man perfect in 
Christ Jesus,’ Col. i, 28. He wanted the Colossians fully to “put on 
charity, which is the bond of perfection, that they might stand perfect 
and complete in all the will of God,” Col. ii, 14; iv, 12. He would 
have “the man of God to be perfect, thoroughly furnished to every 
good work,” 2 Tim. ui, 27. He exhorted his converts, “‘ whether they 
did eat, drink, or do any thing else, to do all to the glory of God, and 


522 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


= ie ee 


m the name of the Lord Jesus; rejoicing evermore, praying without 
ceasing, and in every thing giving thanks ;” that is, he exhorted them 
to walk according to the strictest rules of Christian perfection. 2 
blamed the Hebrews for being still such “as have need of milk, and not 
of strong meat ;” observing that “strong meat, sos1 réAeiwy, belongeth 
to them that are ‘perfect, even to them who by reason of use, [or experi- 
ence, | have their [spiritual] senses exercised to discern both good and 
evil,” Heb. v, 12, &c. He begins the next chapter by exhorting them 
to “go on to perfection ;” intimating that if they do not, they may 
insensibly fall away, “ put the Son of God to open shame, and not be- 
renewed again to repentance.” And he concludes the whole epistle by” 
a pathetic wish that “the God of peace would make them perfect im 
every good work to do his will.” Hence it appears that it would not 
be less unreasonable to set St. Paul upon “ crucifying Christ afresh, 
than to make him attack Christ’s well-known doctrine, “ Be ye [moral 
ly] perfect, [according to your narrow capacity and bounded power,] 
even as your heavenly Father is [morally] perfect” [in his infinite na- 
ture, and boundless Godhead,] Matt. v, 48. 

Mr. Hill will probably attempt to set all these scriptures aside, by 
saying that nothmg can be more absurd than to represent Paul as a 
perfectionist, because he says himself, “« Not as though I had already 
attained, or were already perfect,” Phil. iii, 12. But some remarks 
upon the different’ sorts of perfection, and upon the peculiar perfection 
which the apostle said he had not yet attaimed, will easily solve this 
difficulty. 

Mr. Hill is too well acquainted with divinity, not to know that abso- 
lute perfection belongs to God alone; and that Christ himself, with 
respect to his humanity, fell and still falls short of infinite perfection, 
Omniscience, and a wisdom admitting of no growth, are essential to 
absolute perfection: but the man Christ was not omniscient ; for he did 
not know the day of judgment : nor was his wisdom infinite ; ioe he grew 
mm wisdom. Nay, his happiness is not yet absolute ; for it daily increases 
-as he sees his seed, and is more and more satisfied. God alone is s 
premely perfect: all beings are imperfect, when they are compared to 
him; and though all his works were perfect in their places, yet, as he 
gave them different degrees of perfection, they which have inferior 
degrees of goodness, may be said to be imperfect im comparison of 
them which are endued with superior degrees of excellence. Thus 
archangels are perfect as archangels, but imperfect in comparison of 
Jesus Christ. Angels are perfect as angels, but imperfect in compari- 
son of archangels. Enoch, Elijah, and the saints who arose with our 
Lord, are perfect as glorified saints; and, in comparison of them, the 
departed “spirits of just men made perfect” continue in a state of im- 
perfection: for the risen saints are glorified in body and soul; but the 
mouldered bodies of departed saints, not having yet felt “the power of P 
Christ’s resurrection,” are still under the power of corruption. Imper- — 
fect as St. Paul and St. John are now, in comparison of Enoch, Elijah, — 
and the twenty-four elders so often mentioned by St. John; yet they 
are far more perfect than when they were pressed down by a corrupti- — 
ble body, under which they “groaned, being burdened :” for the disem-— 
bodied spirits of “ just men made perfect” are more perfect than the 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. ° 523 


most perfect Christians, who are yet in a “body dead because of sin.” 
And, as among rich men, some are richer than others; or among tall 
men, some are taller than others; so among perfect Christians, some 
are more perfect than others. 

According to the gradation which belongs to all the works of God; 

according to the doctrine of the dispensations of Divine grace ; the 
least perfect of all perfect Christians, is more perfect than the most 
_ perfect Jew; yéa, than John the Baptist, whose dispensation linked 
together Judaism and Christianity. Or, to speak the language of our 
Lord, “ He that is least in the [Christian] kingdom of God, is greater 
than John ;” though John himself was “the greatest born of a woman” 
under any preceding dispensation.. By the same rule, he that is per- 
fect under the Jewish dispensation, is more perfect than he that is only 
perfect according to the dispensation of the Gentiles. 

The standard of these different perfections is fixed in the Scriptures. 
“To fear God and work righteousness,” that is, to do to others as we 
would be done to, from the principle of the fear of God, is the standard 
of a Gentile’s perfection. The standard of a Jew’s perfection, with 


| vespect to morality, may be seen in Deut. xxvii, 14—26, and in Psa. xv. 


And, with respect to devotion, it is fixed in Psalm cxix. The whole of 


| this perfection is thus summed up by Micah :—“O Israel, what does the 


Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to 
walk humbly with thy God?” 
The perfection of infant Christianity, which is called, in the Scrip- 


_ tures, “the baptism of John,” is thus described by John and by Christ : 


—* He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, &c. 
If thou wilt be perfect, sell what thou hast, give to the poor, and follow 


me. If any man ‘come to me and hate not [i. e. is not willing for my 


sake to leave] his father and mother, his wife and children, yea, and his 
own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever does not bear 
his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” 

With respect to adult perfect Christianity, which is consequent upon 


_ the baptism of the Holy Ghost, administered by Christ himself, its per- 


fection is described in the sermon on the mount ; in 1 Cor. xiii; and mm all 
those parts of the epistles where the apostles exhort believers to walk 
agreeably to “the glorious liberty of God’s children.” 

The perfection of disembodied spirits is thus described by a voice from 
heaven :—“ Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: even so, saith 
the Spirit. for they rest from their labours, [not from their sins; this | 
they did before death,] and their works follow them.” And the com- 


| plete perfection of glorified saints is thus described by St. John and St. 


Paul :—“ They shall live and reign with Christ in a city wherein there 
is no temple, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple 
of it, and the city hath no need of the sun to shine in it, for the glory of 
God enlightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And there shall be 
no curse : but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his 
servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face ; and his name shail 
bevon their foreheads, and they shall reign for ever and ever” in glorified 
bodies. For “this corruptible body shall put on incorruption, and this 
mortal shall put on immortality. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in 
glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural 


) 


524 . LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


ody, it is raised a spiritual body: as is the heavenly Adam, such are 
they also that are heavenly: and as we have borne the image of the 
earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly: for flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God:” but the spiritual, i. e. the 
glorified body shall inherit the heavenly Canaan. " 
Persons, whose orthodoxy consists in obstinately refusing to peep over 
the wall of prejudice, will probably say that these observations upen the 
different sorts and degrees of perfection are “ novel chimeras,” and that 
I-multiply perfections, as I do justifications, “inventing them by the 
dozen.” To this I answer, that we advance nothing but what, we hope, 
recommends itself to the candour of those who have a regard for reason 
and revelation. 4 
1. Reason tells us that all God’s works are perfect in their places; and 
that, some having a higher place than others upon the scale of beings, 
they are of consequence more perfect. If Mr. Hill will not believe it, 
we appeal to his banker, and ask, if there is not an essential difference 
between the metallic perfection of brass, that of silver, and that of gold i 
We appeal to his jeweller, and ask if the perfection of an agate is not 
inferior to that of an emerald—the perfection of a ruby to that of a 
diamond ; and if some diamonds cannot be said to be more perfect than 
others? We appeal to his gardener, and ask if a blackberry is not 
inferior to a strawberry, a strawberry to a nectarine, and a nectarine to 
a pineapple: and if, nevertheless, those various fruits have not each 
their perfection? Nay, we will venture to ask his under gardener, if 
ithe perfection of the fruit does not imply the perfection of the blossom 5 
if the perfection of the blossom does not presuppose that of the bud 
and if a bud, whose perfection is destroyed by the frost in March, is 
likely to produce perfect blossoms in May, and perfect fruit in October? 
Should the fear of becoming a perfectionist make Mr. Hill refuse his 
assent to these obvious truths, we will address him as a master of arts, 
a gentleman who is versed in natural philosophy, as well as in Calvinism 
Is it absurd to say that some just men rise progressively from the per- 
fection of a lower, to the perfection of a higher dispensation in the 
spiritual world? Do we not see a similar promotion, even among the 
_ basest classes of animals in the natural world? Consider that beauti fu 
insect, which exults to display its crown, and expand its wings in the 
sun. Will you not say that it is a perfect butterfly? Nevertheless, 
three weeks ago it was a perfect aurelia, quietly sleeping in its silken 
tomb. Some months before, it was a perfect silkworm, busily preparing 
itself for another state of existence, by spinning and weaving its shroud. 
And had you seen it a year ago, you would have seen nothing but a pe 
fect egg. Thus, in one year, it has experienced three grand changes, 
which may be called metamorphoses, births, or conversions. Each 
change was perfect in its kind: and, nevertheless, the last is as far 
superior to the first, as a beautiful, flying butterfly exceeds a black, 
crawling worm; and such a worm, the invisible seed of life, that lies ” 
dormant in the diminutive egg of an insect. 
2. Scriprure and experience do not support our doctrine of the dif: 
ference of perfections, less than reason and philosophy. We read, 
Gen. vi. 9, that ‘“ Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation.” 
We read also, Jobi, 1 “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose 


2 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. : 525 


name was Job, and that man was perrect.” Now, whatever the per- 
fection of Noah and Job consisted in, it is evident that it was not Jewish 
perfection : for the perfection of Judaism requires the sacrament of — 
cireumcision; and Mr. Hill will hardly say that men were circumcised 
in the land oF Uz, and before the flood. Hence I conclude that 
Noah and Job had attained the perfection of Gentilism, and not that of 
Judaism. 

Again : “ Mark the perfect man,” says David, “ for his end is peace.” 
No doubt he spake this of the perfect Jew; and such were, | think, 
Moses, Samuel, and Daniel: if Mr. Hill will not allow it, I produce 
Simeon or Anna, or Zacharias and Elizabeth, “who were both right- 
eous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of 
God blameless,” Luke i, 16. Now these excellent Jews were not 
perfect according to the dispensation of John the Baptist; for water 
baptism was not less essential to a perfect disciple of John, than circum- 
cision was to a perfect disciple of Moses, and they, or some of them, 
probably died long before John opened his dispensation by “ preaching 
the baptism of repentance.” 

Once more: John the Baptist was undoubtedly perfect according to 
his own dispensation ; his penitential severity, his great reputation for 
holiness, and the high encomium which our Lord passed upon hin, 
naturally lead us to conclude it. But that he was not a perfect Christian 
is evident from the following considerations: (1.) Our Lord said, that 
“the least in the Christian kingdom of God should be greater than 
John.” (2.) John himself confessed the imperfection of his baptism, 
or dispensation, in comparison of the perfection of Christ’s baptism and 
spiritual dispensation: “I have need to be baptized of thee,” said he to 
Christ, “and comest thou to me?” And to his disciples he said, “I 
indeed baptize you with water, but he [the Lamb of God] shall baptize 
you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” (3.) John was beheaded 
before Christ was crucified ; and the outpouring of the Spirit, the bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost, did not begin til] after Christ’s ascension ; the 
apostle St. John having particularly mentioned that “the Holy Ghost 
was not yet given,” or that a full dispensation of the Spirit was not yet 
opened, ‘‘ because Jesus was not yet glorified,” John vii; 39 : an impor- 
tant observation this, which is confirmed by Christ’s own words to his 
disciples, John xvi, 7, “I tell you the truth ; it is expedient for you that 
I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: 
[the full dispensation of the Holy Ghost shall not be opened :] but if I 
depart, I will send him to you.” Agreeably to this, “he commanded 
them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the 
promise of the Father, [i. e. the promised Spirit,] which, says he, ye 
have heard of me ; for John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost noi many days hence.” And when they 
had been thus baptized, they began to preach the full baptism of Christ, 
which has two branches, the baptism of water, and the baptism of the 
Spirit, or of celestial fire. Therefore, when the penitent Jews asked, 
* Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter answered, “ Be baptized 
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, and ye shall receive the 
gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise of it is unto you, and unto 
your children, and to all that are afar off; even as many as the Lord 


526 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


our God shall call” to the perfection of the Christian dispensation: « 
we are witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom 
God [since the day of pentecost] hath given to them that obey him,” 
i. e. to obedient believers: compare Acts ii, 38, and v, 32, with John 
vii, 38. a 
From the preceding reasons, we conclude that the case of John the 
Baptist was as singular as that of Moses. Moses knew Joshua, and 
pointed him out as ‘the man who was to lead the Israelites into the land 
of promise: but Moses died before Joshua opened the way. Thus 
Moses saw the good land: he was not far from the typical kingdom of 
God; but he did not enter into it. In like manner the Baptist knew 
Christ, and pointed him out as the wonderful person who was to introduce 
believers into the spiritual kingdom of God. But John was beheaded 
before Christ glorified opened his peculiar kingdom. Thus John saw 
the kingdom of heaven: he was not far from it. But yet he did not 
enter into it. He died a “just man, made perfect” according to his owr 
incomplete dispensation, but not according to the dispensation of Christ 
and his Spirit. This was the Baptist’s grief, not his guilt: for he earn. 
estly desired to be baptized of Christ with the Holy Ghost; but the Holy 
Ghost was not yet given in the Christian measure. The gift of the 
Spirit was rather distilled as a dew, than poured out as a shower; 
“because Jesus was not yet glorified :” but now, that he is ascended 
on high to receive that unspeakable gift for men in its fulness; now tha 
the promise of the Father is fulfilled to all who plead it aright; we are 
culpable if we rest satisfied with the inferior manifestations of the Spiri 
which belong to the baptism of John or to infant Christianity: and we 
act in an unchristian-like manner if we ridicule the kingdom of the Holy 
Ghost, and speak evil of perfect Christianity. ¥ 
To return: a perfect Gentile sees God in his works and providences ; 
but wanting a more particular manifestation of his existence and goodness, 
he sighs, O where shall I find him? A perfect Jew ardently expects his 
céming as Messiah and Emmanuel, or God with us; and he groans, O 
that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down! <A perfect disciple 
of John believes that the Messiah is come in the flesh, and prays, O 
Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, restore the king tis om 
to a waiting Israelite: baptize me with the Holy Ghost : fill me with ti 
Spirit! And perfect Christians can witness from blessed experience thé 
He who was “manifest in the flesh,” is come in the Spirit’s power te 
establish within them his gracious “kingdom of righteousness, peace, 
and joy in the Holy Ghost.” 4 
In this blessed kingdom St. Paul lived, when he said, “ Let ate 
many as are perfect, be thus minded.” Nevertheless, though he 1 
not only a perfect Christian, but also able to “preach wisdom amon 
them that were perfect,” he justly acknowledges himself scope i 
knowledge, in comparison of perfectly glorified saints. “ We know but 
in part,” says he, “but when that which is perfect is come, then that 


which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass — 
darkly,” but when we shall drop these dark veils of flesh and blood, and — 


be clothed witt celestial, incorruptible bodies, we shall be capable o 


Pid 5: 


beholding God, “we shall see him face to face,” 1 Cor. xiii, 9, &e. 


“For though we are now the sons of God, it does not yet appear what 


<<. eee 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 527 


we shall be: but we know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like 
him, for we shall see him as he is,” 1 John iii, 2. 

It is of this final perfecting of the saints in the day of the resurrection 
that the apostle writes to the Hebrews, where he says, “These, having 
all obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise,” which 
relates to the full perfection of the just: “God having provided some 
better things for us [Christians] that they [the Jewish saints] without us 
should not be made perfect, [that is, that we should all be perfected in 
glory together.] For we shall all be changed in a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, (for the trumpet shall sound, and 
the dead shall be raised incorruptible,) and we [who shall have died, or 
shall then be found living in a state of initial perfection] shall be changed,” 
Heb. xi, 39; 1 Cor. xv, 51. 

Nor does it follow from hence that all glorified saints shall be equally 
perfect. I cannot but embrace here the reasonable sentiment of Dr. 
Watts :—“ The worship of heaven,” says that judicious divine, “and the 
joy that attends it, may be exceedingly different in degrees, according to 
the different capacities of spirits; and yet all may be perfect, and free 
from sinful defects. Does not the sparrow praise its Maker upon the 
ridge of a cottage, chirping in its native perfection? And yet the lark 
advances, in her flight and song, as far above the sparrow as the clouds 
are above the housetop. Surely superior joys and glories must belong 
to superior powers and services. The word perfection does not always 
imply equality. If all the souls in heaven be of one mould, and make, 
and inclination ; yet there may be different sizes of capacity even in the 
same genus, and a different degree of preparation for the same delights ; 
therefore should all the spirits of the jist be uniform in their natures and 
pleasures, and all perfect; yet one spirit may possess more happiness 
and glory than another, because it is more capacious .of intellectual 
blessings, and better prepared for them. So when vessels of various 
size are thrown into the same ocean, there will be a great difference in 
the quantity of the liquid which they receive ; though all may be full'to 
the brim, and all made of the richest metal.” (Waits on the Hanpingss 
of Separate Spirits.) 

Having thus proved both by reason and Scripture that there are various 
sorts and degrees of perfection ; and that a man may be perfect accord- 
ing to the dispensation of Divine grace he is under upon earth, though 
he be not yet perfect according to the dispensation of Divine glory, which 
will take place when our mortal bodies shall know the power of Christ’s 
resurrection: having proved this, I say, nothing is easier than to recon- 
cile St. Paul with himself, when he speaks in the same chapter of his 
being perfect, and of his not being yet perfect. For when he says, “ Let 
us, aS many as are perfect, be thus minded,” he speaks of Christian 
perfection, that is, of the maturity of grace and holiness, which men still 
burdened with corruptible flesh and blood arrive at under the full dispen- 
sation of the Gospel of Christ. But when he says, “ Not as though I 


~had already attained, or were already perfect,” &c, he speaks of his 


perfection as a candidate for a crown of martyrdom on earth, and for a 
erown of glory in heaven. Just as if he said, “Though I am dead to 
sin, and perfected in love; though I live not, but Christ liveth in me; 
yet I am not satisfied with my present perfection : I want to be perfected 


528 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


like Christ. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and [then] 
to enter into his glory ?, Luke xxiv, 26. I want, in short, to be perfected 
in suffering, as well as in love. I cannot, I will not rest, till L end my 
race of pain and shame, and know the fellowship of Christ’s suffering: 
on the ignominious tree. I am filled with a noble ambition of dying a 
martyr for him; being persuaded that this perfection of sufferings will 
ripen me for my heavenly perfection—the perfection to which I shall be 
raised at the resurrection of the just.” ‘ 
That this was the apostle’s meaning, when he cae his “ being 
already made perfect,” will, I hope, appear indubitable to those who 
consider the context. ‘The words which immediately precede St. Paul’s 
observation that “he had not yet attained,” express a pathetic wish of 
sharing both in Christ’s exaltation, by a glorious resurrection, and in his 
humiliation, by perfect suffermgs. “That I may know him,” as he says, 
“ and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings ; 
being made conformable unto his [painful, ignominious] death, if by any” 
means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead,” which is the full 
perfection of the human nature ; and secure a part in the first resurrection 
of the just, in which martyrs will be peculiarly interested: witness this” 
plain scripture, “ I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the 
witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, &c, and they lived and 
reigned with Christ a thousand years: but the rest of the dead lived not 
again until the thousand years were finished. ‘This is the first resurrees 
tion. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection,” 
Rey. xx, 4, &c. : 
But I repeat it, although St. Paul disclaimed his haying yet attained 
a perfection of shame and glory, he nevertheless professed his haying 
attained a perfection of Christian faith working by love. This is evident 
from the words that follow the controverted text :—“ This one thing I de 
&c, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God im 
Christ Jesus [which is my complete glorification in heayen.] Let us, 
therefore, as many as are perfect [in faith and love] be thus minded,” 
Let us press after our perfection of suffering here, and of glory hereafter: 
a bodily perfection this, which the apostle describes thus at the end o 
the chapter :—“ We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
shall change our vile body, according to the working whereby he is able 
to subdue all things unto himself,” Phil. iii, 21. Hence it appears, if 
we are not strangely mistaken, that it is not less absurd to oppose our 
doctrine of Christian perfection from Phil. ii, than to oppose the divinity 
of Christ from the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel. 
I shall conclude these remarks upon the various sorts of perfection 
by an observation which may help Mr. Hill to understand how St. Paul 
could be perfect in Jove, when he professed that he was not perfect either 
in glory, knowledge, or sufferings. 
Had not our Lord been perfect in love from a child, he would he ve 
broken the two great commandments on which hang all the law and the — 
prophets. But “in him was no sin:” therefore he was perfect in love, 
though his love admitted of an increase, as well as his wisdom and 
knowledge ; just as a perfect bud admits of a perfect growth into a 
perfect blossom, and such a blossom into a perfect fruit. Hence it i 
that our Lord’s perfect love grew, “he increased in favour with 


t 


a aR ta Ti at i a rie, 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 029 


and man :” an additional degree of approbation being due to him from 
all rationals, upon every display of his growing perfection, Luke i, 52. 
But though our Lord was always perfect in love, yet it is certain that 
he was not always perfect in sufferings, much less in glory: for he was 
not perfected in sufferings till after he had expired between the two 
thieves; nor was he perfected in glory before he took his place at the 
right hand of God. This is evidently the apostle’s doctrine where he 


_ says, “It became Him by whom are all things, to make the Captain of 


our salvation perfect through sufferings,” Heb. ii, 10. And again, 
chap. v, 8, “Though he was a son, yet learned he obedience by the 
things which he suffered: and beg made perfect [in sufferings and in 
glory] he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey 
him.” Mr. Hill must then allow that St. Paul’s mrrrrection, with 
respect to sufferings and glory, was no obstacle to the PERFECTION of 
his Jove: or he must assert that Christ was sinfully imperfect in love 
so long as he continued imperfect in sufferings and glory ; a supposition 
this which is too horrible to be admitted by a merely nominal Christian, 
much more by Mr. Hill. 


SECTION VII. 


St. Paul was not carnal, and sold under sin—The true meaning of 
Gal. v, 17, and of Rom. vii, 14, &c, is opened consistently with the 
conteat, the design of the Epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans, 
and the privileges of Christians, and the doctrine of perfection. 


Ir is easier to raise dust than to answer an argument. I expect, 
therefore, that our opponents, instead of solidly answering the contents 
of the preceding section, will assert that St. Paul was an avowed enemy 
to deliverance from evil tempers before death, and of consequence a 
strong opposer of the doctrine of Christian perfection. And to suppoft 
their assertion they wiil probably quote the following text :—“ The flesh 
lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, so that ye 
cannot do the things that ye would,” Gal. v, 17. For they conclude 
from these words, that, so long as we dwell in bodies of corruptible flesh, 
we cannot help breaking the law of liberty (at least from time to time) 
by sinful, internal lusts. As this objection passes among them for un- 
answerable, it may not be amiss to give it a fourfold answer :— 

1. St. Paul wrote these words to the carnal, fallen Galatians. To 
them he said, “So that ye cannot do the things that ye would :” and 
there was a good reason why “they could not do” what they had a 
weak desire to do. They were bewitched by the flesh, and by carnal 
teachers, who led them from the power of the Spirit to the weakness of* 
the letter; yea, to the letter of Judaism too. But did he not speak of 
himself to the Philippians in a very different strain? Did he not declare, 
“I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me?” And. 
camnot every believer, who steadily walks in the Spirit, say the same 
thing? Who does not see the flaw of this argument? The “ disobedient, 
fallen, bewitched” believers of Galatia, of whom St. Paul stood in doubt, 
could not but fulfil the lusts of the flesh when they were led by the flesh: 

Vox. II. 34 


530 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


« Mither hot nor cold,” like the Laodiceans, they could neither be perfect 
Christians nor perfect worldlings, because they fully sided neither with 
the Spirit nor with the flesh: or, to use the apostle’s words, * they could 
not do the things that they would,” through the opposition which the 
flesh made against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; neither 
of these principles bging yet fully victorious in their halting, distracte d 
hearts: therefore this must be also the miserable case of all obedient, 
faithful, established believers through all ages all the world over! 
has this Antinomian conclusion to do with the Seriptural premises ? 
When I assert that those who have put out their knees cannot run a 
race swiftly, do I so much as intimate that no man can be a swift racer? 
2. It is as unscriptural to judge of the power and liberty of established 
believers by the power and liberty of the Galatjans, as it is unreasonable 
to judge of the liberty of a free nation by the servitude of a half-enslaved 
people; or of the strength of a vigorous child by the weakness of a 
half-formed embryo. I ‘found this senna (1.) Upon Gal. v, 1, where 
ihe apostle indirectly reproves his Judaizing, wrangling converts, for 
being fallen from “ the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and 
for being entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” And, (2.) Upon 
Gal. iy, 19, “ My little children, of whom I trayail in birth again, until 
Christ be formed in you.” The dawn of day is not more different from 
the meridian light, than the imperfect state described in this verse is 
different from the perfect state described in the following lines, which 
are.descriptive of the adult Christian :—“I am crucified with Christ: 
nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which 
I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,” Gal. ii, 20. 
3. The sense which is commonly fixed upon the texts produced b: 
our opponents is entirely overturned by the context: read the preceding 
verse and you will find a glorious, though a conditional promise of the 
liberty which we plead for : “« This I say, walk im the Spirit, and ye shall 
not fulfil the [sinful] lusts of the flesh ;” that is, far from harbouring 
either outward or inward sin, ye shall, with myself, and as many as are 
perfect, steadily keep your body under, and be in every thing spiritually 
minded, which “is life and peace.’ : 
4, We should properly distinguish between the lawful and the sinfu 
lusts or desires of the flesh. To desire to eat, to drink, to sleep, to marry, 
to rest, to shun pain, at proper times and in a proper manner, Is no sir 
such lusts or desires are not contrary to the law of liberty. Our Lor 
himself properly indulged most of these harmless propensities of th 
flesh, without ceasing to’be the immaculate Lamb of God. Hence it is 
that our Church requires us in our baptism to renounce only “the sin. 
ful lusts of the flesh ;” giving us a tacit leave lawfully to indulge its 
lawful’ appetites. I should be glad, for example, to recruit my strength 
by one hour’s sleep, or by an ounce of food; as well as by a good night’s 
rest, or a good meal. But the flesh harmlessly lusteth against the 
Spirit : so that in these, and in a thousand such instances, ‘1 cannot do 
the things that I would.” But do I commit sin when I use my body 
according to its nature? Nay, if I were as strongly solicited unlawfully to 
indulge the lawful appetites of my flesh, as Christ was to turn stofies into 
bread when he felt keen hunger in the wilderness, would not such a iene ae 
-tion increase the glory of my victory, rather than the number of my sins? 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 531 


_Isit right in our opponents to avail themselves of the vague, unfixed an 
ing of the words flesh and lust, to make the simple believe that, so long as 
we have human flesh about us, and bodily appetites within us, our hearts 
_ must necessarily remain pregnant with sinful Justs, and we shall “have 
innumerable lusts (as says an imperfectionist whom I shall soon mention) 

about our hearts 7’ Does not this doctrine put a worm at the 

of Christian liberty, while it nourishes Antinomian freedom ; a free- 

to sin, even to adultery and murder, without ceasing to be sinless 
and perfect in Christ? 

5. ‘Two lines after St. Paul’s supposed plea for the necessary contin- 
“Mance of indwelling sin in believers, the apostle begins a long enume- 
' Fation of the “ works of the flesh, of the which,” says he, «T tell you before, 
as I have also told yousin time past, that they who do such things, [or 
‘admit in their hearts such lusts as hatred, variance, strife, or envyings.] 
shall not inherit the kmgdom of God :” whereas, # they that are Christ’s 

[they that are led by the Spirit of God, for in St. Paul’s account only 

such are Christ's, that is, properly belong to Christ's spiritual dispen- 

sation, Rom. viii, 9, 14.] have crucified the flesh with its affections and 
lusts,” Gal. v, 24. Now these spiritual believers “can do all thmgs 

: Christ :” and accordingly the apostle observes that, far from bear- 

ing the fruit of the flesh, they bear the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, 

peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, tem- 
perance.—the whole cluster of herent graces which makes up Christian 
perfection ; and then he observes that “the law is not agamst such, 

they fulfil it :] for all the law is fulfilled m one word, even in 

this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” Gal. v, 14-23. 

6. The sense which the imperfectionists give to Gal. vy, 17, is not only 
flatly contrary to the rest of the chapter, but to the end and design of all 
the epistle. What the apostle has chiefly m view through the whole, 
is to reprove the Galatians for their carnality in following Judaizing 
| teachers, and in bearing the fruits of the flesh, ency, variance, &c, inso- 
much that they were ready to bite and devour one another. Now, if 
} when he had sharply reproved them as persons who ended in the flesh, 
after having begun in the Spirit, he had written Gal. vy, 17, in the sense 
of our opponents, he would fairly have excused these bewitched men, 
absolutely defeated his reproof, and absurdly furnished them with an 
excellent plea to contmue in their bad course of life. For if they could 

not “fulfil the law of Christ.” but must remain carnal, and sold under 

a sin, had they not a right to answer the apostle thus :—“If 

neither we whom thou callest bewitched Galatians, nor any spiritual 

believer, can possibly do the things we should and would do, because the 
flesh sinfully and unavoidably lusteth against the Spirit; why dast thou 
blame us for our carnality? Why dost thou take us to task rather than 
other believers? Are we not all bound by adamantine chains of/camal 
to break the law of Christ so long as we are in the body? Art 
thou not the very man who givest us to understand that we cannot do 
what we should and would do, because the flesh, which we cannot possibly 
part before death, lusteth against the Spirit? And is not absolute 
the best excuse m the world?” 
| 7. Should Mr. Hill ask, What is then the genuine meaning of 
Gal. v, 17? We reply, that when we consider that verse im the light 


532 % LAST CHECK JO ANTINOMIANISM. 


of the context, we do not doubt but the sense of it is fairly expre ssed_ 
in the following lines :—“'The flesh and the Spirit are two contrary prin 
ciples. ‘They that are in, or walk after the flesh, cannot please God. 
And ye are undoubtedly in the flesh, and walk after the flesh, while ¢ y 
bite and devour one another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit : be 
led by the Spirit, and-ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh, as ye noy 
do: for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit? and prevails in all carnal 
people; ‘and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh,’ and prevails in al 
spiritual people ; ‘and these two,’ far from nesting together, as Antino. 
mian teachers make you believe, ‘are contrary to each other.’ The} 
are irreconcilable enemies: ‘so that’ as obedient, spiritual believers 
while they are led 2 the Spirit, ‘cannot do what they would do if they 


yet Pets eis the Spirit. Would ye then return to your 
liberty? Return te your duty: change your guide: forsake the ca 
mind: let ‘ Christ be formed m you: be led by the Spirit: so shall 
fulfil the law of Christ ;’ and it shall no more condemn you, than the 
law of Moses binds you. ‘For if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not 
under the curse of the law :’ ye are equally free from the bondage of the 
Mosaic law, and from the condemnation of the law of eae Gal. 
v, 16-18. 

8. Should Mr. Hill say “that by the flesh he understands not only th 
body, but also the natural desires, appetites, and aversions, which are neces. 
sarily excited in the soul, in consequence of its intimate union with the 
body ; and that the body of sin must needs live and die with the body 
which our spirit inhabits; because, so long as we continue in the 
body, we are unavoidably tried by a variety of situations, passions, incli 
nations, aversions, and infirmities which burden us, hinder us from doing 
and suffering all we could wish to do and to suffer, and occasion out 
doing or feeling what we should be glad in some respects not to do ol 
feel :” 

I answer, It is excessively wrong to conclude that all these burdens, 
infirmities, appetites, passions, and aversions, are those sinful working 
of our corrupt nature which are sometimes called the flesh. You 
not continue a whole day in deep prostration of body and soul, nor 
haps one hour upon your knees. Your stomach involuntarily es 
at the sight of some food which some persons esteem delicious : yout 
strength fails i outward works: your spirits are exhausted; you faint 
or sleep, when others are active and toil: you need the spiritual 
bodily ,cordials which others can administer: perhaps also yo 
afflicted with disagreeable sensations in the outward man, throagl 
natural, necessary play of the various springs which belong to flesh 
blood: your just grief vents itself in tears : your zeal for God is attend 
with a proper anger at sin: nay, misapplying what the apostle says of — 
the carnal man under the law, you may declare with great truth, Th 
extensive good I would, I do not; and the accidental evil I would not, 
that I do; I would convert every sinner, relieve every distressed o ject, 
and daily visit every sick bed in the kingdom, but I cannot do it. 
would never try the patience of my friends, never stir up the envy of 


ee eee. 533 


rivals, never excite the malice of my enemies; but I cannotfhelp 
doing tht andesigned ev, as ofien as rongly exert myelin the 
aes Ail these things, or most of them, are quite inconsistent 
with the perfection y ou contend for,” s bay aeaces ore ats 


=e ee ee ee 


i 
i 
ml 
abe: ft 
Bay 
tae 
By 
5 


| one saan pio = Had he not the trouble. “ 

‘ some sensation of grief at Lazarus’ grave ; of hunger in the wilderness; 
_ @f wearmess at Jacob’s well; and of thirst upon the cross? If he was 
“made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and tempted im all things as we 
are ;” is it not highly probable that he was not an utter stranger to the 
Siitieiel appciiies, aed uneasy semations which are imcsdent io 
flesh and blood? Is i a sim to feel them? Is it not rather a virtue 
totally to deny them, or not to gratify them out of the lime of duty, or 
Rot te mdulge them in an excessive manner in that lime? Agam: did 
not his holy flesh testify a natural mnocent abhorrence to suffering? 
Did not bis sacred body faint m the garden? Were not his spirits so 
that he stood im need of the strengthening assisiance of an 

angel? Did he do all the good he would? To suppose that he wished’ 
not the conversion of his friends and brethren, is to suppose him totally 
devoid of natural affection; but were they all converted! Did you 
newer teal, «Neither did his brethren believe in him: and his friends 
went out to lay hold on him ; for they said, He is beside himself?” To 
conclude: did he not accidentally stir up the evil he would not, when 
ee on ee cary of the Pewee; the sere of Berd; the 
«fears of P ; the rage of the Jewish mob? And when he prayed 
that the “cup might pass from him, if it were possible :” did he 
ge eee ee wed ceed If every 
_ such desire be indwelling sin, or the flesh «sinfully lusting against the 
Spirit,” did he not go through the sinful conflict as well as those whom 
we call perfect men m Christ? And, consequently, did he not fall at 
once-from_mediatorial, Adamic, and Christian perfection ; indwelling 
Uae aekter ac thas here: amped And if our 
_ sinless Lord felt the weakness of the fiesh harmlessly lustimg against the 
willingness of the spirit, according to his own doctrme, “ The spint 
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,” is it not evident that the con- 

_ fiict we speak of, (if the spirit maintains its superior, victorious lusting 
the flesh, and by that means steadily keeps the flesh m its proper 

; a ace cas certs seer coe 

: which were the lot of our sinless, perfect Saviour, to the last? 

ne cena fh 
es cay, cae aeceey coos aia 


% 


—a—E 


(2) That tis tr any tle pene wih he coins ad 
design of the whole epistle, is a proof that obedient, spiritual believers, 


> 


, shining through his epistles, discourses, and conduct ; and I have pro 


» than to take advantage of a figurative mode of expression, to laotaa 


tang gh 


* fect faith, and perfect love, productive of the gracious tempers which 


.the more willingly we acknowledge them to God and men. ‘This is 


534 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 
. 


can do what the “ bewitched Galatians” could not do; that is, they ca 
“crucify the flesh with all its affections and lusts,” and walk as pe 
Christians who utterly destroy the whole body of sin, and “ fulfil the 
of Christ.” And, (3.) That to produce Gal. y, against the doctrine o} 
Christian perfection, is full as absurd as to quote the sermon upon 
mount in defence of Antinomian delusions. | I have dwelt so long upon 
this head, because I have before me* “ An Essay on Galatians y, 17,” 
lately published by an ingenious divine, who takes it for granted that the 
apostle contends, in this verse, for the necessary indwelling of sin. 

Mr. Hill will probably say, “That he does not rest the doctrine of 
Christian imperfection so much upon the experience of the fallen Gal 
tians, as upon that of St. Paul himself, who, in Romans vii, frankly ‘ae 
knowledges that he was still a wretched, carnal man, sold under sin, and 
serving with the flesh the law of sin. Whence it follows that it is high 
presumption in modern believers to aspire at more perfection, and a 
greater freedom from sin upon earth, than had been attained by St. 
Paul, who was ‘not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles, but 
laboured more abundantly than they all.’” To this common objection 
I answer :— 


1. The perfection we preach is nothing but Ry per- 


St. Paul Himaself describes, 1 Cor. xiii. We see those blessed tempers 


in the preceding section that he himself’ professed Christian perfecti 
This objection, therefore, appears to us an ungenerous attempt to make 
St. Paul grossly contradict himself. For what can be more ungenerous 


good man’s character, and to traduce him as a slave of his fleshly lusts, 
a drudge to carnality, a wretch sold under sin? What would Mr. Hill 
think of me, if, under the plausible pretence of magnifying God’s grace 

to the chief of sinners, and of proving that there is no deliverance from 
sin in this life, ] made the following speech ?— ‘ 


«The more we grow in grace, the more clearly we see our sins ; and 


abundantly verified by the confessions that the most holy men haw e 
made of their wickedness. Paul himself, holy Paul, is not ashamed t 
humble himself for the sins which he committed, even after his conyer- 
sion. ‘I robbed other Churches,’ says he, ‘taking wages to do you 
service, 2 Cor. xi, 8. Hence it appears that the apostle had agreed to 
serve some Churches for a proper salary: but, being ‘ carnal, and sold 
under sin,’ he broke his word; he fleeced, but role to feed the flocks; 
and robbing the Churches, he went to the Corinthians, perhaps to see 
what he could get of them also in the end; for ‘the heart is decei 
above all things, and desperately wicked,’ Jer. xvii, 9. Nay, partial 
he was to those Corinthians, for whom he turned Church robber, 
showed that his love to them was not sinless and free from rage; 
once he threatened to come to them ‘ with a rod;’ and he gave one 
them to ‘Satan for the destruction of the flesh.’ With great proprie 


* The arguments by which the doctrine of the necessary indwelling of sin in ¢ 
believers till death is supported in that essay, will be considered in section xiv. ws 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 535 


’ therefore, did holy Paul say to the last, ‘I am the chief of sinners.’ 
And now, when the chief of the apostles thus abases himself before 
God, and publicly testifies, both by his words and works, that there is 
no deliverance from sin, no perfection in this life; who can help being 

_ frightened at the Pharisaic pride of the men who dare inculeate the doc- 

_ trine of sinless perfection ?” 

I question if Mr. Hill himself, upon reading this ungenerous and 
absurd, though in one sense Scriptural plea for St. Paul’s imperfection, 
would not be as much out of conceit with my fictitious explanation of 
2 Cor. xi, as I am with his Calvinistic exposition of Rom. vii. -Nor do 
I thmk it more criminal to represent the apostle as a Church robber, 
than to traduce him as a “wretched, carnal man, sold under sin ;” 
another Ahab, that is, a man who did “evil in the sight of the Lord, 
above all that were before him.” 

2. St. Paul no more professes himself actually a carnal man in Rom. 
vii, 7, than he professes himself actually a liar in Rom. ii, 7, where he 
says, “ But if the truth of God has more abounded through my lie, why 
am I judged as a smner?’ He no more professes himself a man 

_ actually sold under sin, than St. James and his fellow believers profes= 

_ themselves a generation of vipers, and actual eursers of men, when the 
one wrote and the others read, “The tongue can no man tame: it is 

| full of deadly poison; therewith curse we men.” When St. Paul 

| reproves the partiality of some of the Corinthians to this or that preacher, 

_ he imtroduces Apollos and himself; though it seems that his reproof was 

_ chiefly intended for other preachers, who fomented a party spirit in the 

corrupted Church of Corinth. And then he says, “These things, 

_ brethren, I have im a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos, for 
your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that 

| which is written,” 1 Cor. iv, 6. By the same figure he says - himself, 
what he might have said of any other man, or of all mankind : «Though 

"I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I 
| am become as sounding brass.” ‘Thrice in three verses he speaks of 
| his not having charity: and suppose he had done it three hundred times, 

_ this would no more have proved that he was really uncharitable, than 

his saying, Rom. vii. “I am sold under sin,” proves that he “ served the 

_ Jaw of sin with his body,” as a slave is forced to serve the master who 

- bought him. 

' _ 3. It frequently happens, also, that by a figure of rhetoric, which is 
called hypotyposis, writers relate things past, or things to come, in the 
present tense, that their narration may be more lively, and may make a 
stronger impression. Thus, Gen: vi, 17, we read, “ Behold IL, even [, 
do bring [i. e. I will bring one hundred and twenty years hence] a flood 

_ upon the earth to destroy all flesh.” Thus also, 2 Sam. xxii, 1, 35, 48, 

_ “When the Lord had delivered David out of the hands of all his ene- 

mies, and given him peace in all his borders, he spake the words of this 

song. He teacheth [i. e. he taught] my hands to war, so that a bow of 

steel is [i. e. was] broken by mine arms: it is God that avengeth [i. e. 

that hath avenged] me, and that bringeth [i. e. has brought] me fo 

_ from mine enemies.” A thousand such expressions, or this figure con- 

_ tinued through a thousand verses, would never prove, before unpreju- 
diced persons, that King Saul was alive, and that David was not yet 


536 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


delivered for good out of his bloody hands. Now, if St. Paul, 
similar figure, which he carries throughout part of a chapter, related 
past experience in the present tense: if the Christian apostle, to humble 
himself, and to make his description more lively, and the opposition 
tween the bondage of sin and Christian liberty more striking; if 
apostle, I say, with such a design as this, appears upon the stage of 
instruction in his old Jewish dress, a dress this, in which he could s 
God day and night, and yet, like another Ahab, breathe threaten: 5 
and slaughter against God’s children : and if in this dress he says, “ 
am eavnall sold under sin,” &c, is it not ridiculous to measure his 
growth as an apostle of Christ by the standard of his stature vo he 
was a Jewish bigot, a fiery zealot, full of good peers 2° and bad p 
formances ? “4 
4, To take a scripture out of the context, is afte like taking th 
stone that binds an arch out of its place: you know not what to ake 
of it. Nay, you may put it to a use quite contrary to that for which if 
was intended. This our opponents do, when they so take Rom. vii, 
out of its connection with Rom. vi, and Rom. viii, as to make it mean 
the very reverse of what the apostle designed. St. Paul, in Romans 
fifth and sixth, and in the beginning of the seventh chapter, describes 
“the glorious liberty of the children of God” under the Christian dis. 
pensation. And as a skilful painter puts shades in his pie 
heighten the effect of the lights; so the judicious apostle introdu 
the latter part of Rom. vi, a lively description of the domin 
power of sin, and of the intolerable burden of guilt: a burde 
which he had so severely felt, when the convincing Spirit cha 
home upon his conscience after he.had broken his good resolutions; 
but especially during the three days of his blindness and fasting 
Damascus. Then he groaned, “O wretched man that I am,” &e, 
hanging night and day between despair and hope, between unbelief 
faith, between bondage and freedom, till God brought him into Christian 
liberty by the ministry of Ananias; of this liberty the apostle gives us% 
farther and fuller account in Rom. viii. Therefore the description of 
the man who groans under the galling yoke of sin, is brought in merely 
by contrast, to set off the amazing difference there is between the 
bondage of sin and the liberty of Gospel holiness: just as the generals, 
who entered Rome in triumph, used to make a show of the prince w 
they had conquered. On such occasions the conqueror rode in a 
umphal chariot crowned with laurel, while the captive king followed 
him on foot, loaded with chains, and making, next to the conqueror, the 

most striking part of the show. Now, if in a Roman triumph, some of 
the spectators had taken the chained king on foot for the victorious 
general in the chariot, because the one immediately followed the other, 
they would have beén guilty of a mistake not unlike that of our oppo. 
nents, who take the carnal Jew, “sold under sin,” and groaning as he 
goes along, for the Christian believer, who “ walks in the Spirit,” exult 
in the liberty of God’s children, and always triumphs in Christ. “ be 
, 5. To see the propriety of the preceding observation, we need only 

take notice of the contrariety there is between the bondage of the earna 
penitent, described Rom. vii, 14, &c, and the liberty of the spiritual 1 
described in the beginning of that very chapter. “The one:says, Wi 
A 


4 


= 


‘ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 4387 


shall deliver me? -Sin revives: it works in him all manner of concu- 
piscence, yea, it works death in him: he is carnal, sold under sin,” 
forced by his bad habits to what he is ashamed of, and kept from domg 
what he sees his duty. ‘In him, that is, in his flesh, dwells no good 
thing: sin dwelleth in him. How to perform that which is good he 
finds not.” Though he has a desire to be better, yet still he « does not 
do good, he does evil; evil is present with him.” His “ inward man,” 
his reason and conscience approve, yea, delight in God’s law,” i. e. in 
that which is right ;» but still he does it not ; his good resolutions are no 
sooner made than they are broken: for “ another law in his members 
wars against the law of his mind,” that is, his carnal appetites oppose 
the dictates of his conscience, and “ bring him into captivity to the law 
of sin;” so that, like a poor chained slave, he has just liberty enough to 
rattle his chains, and to say, “O wretched man that I am, who shall 
deliver me from the body of this death,” from this complete assemblage 
of corruption, misery, and death! _Is it not ridiculous to conclude, that 
because his groaning slave has now and then a hope of deliverance, and 
at times “ thanks God through Jesus Christ” for that hope ; he is act- 
ually a partaker of the liberty, which is thus described in the beginning 
of the chapter? “Ye are become dead to the law [the-Mosaic dispen- 
sation] that ye should be married to Him, who is raised from the dead, 
that [instead of omitting to do good, and doing evil] we should bring 
forth fruit unto God, For when we were in the flesh, [in the state of 
the carnal man sold under sin, a sure proof this that the apostle was no 
more in that state] the motions of sin which were by the law [abstracted 
from the Gospel promise] did work in our members to bring forth fruit 
unto death. But now we are deliyered from the [curse of the moral, as 
well as from the bondage of the Mosaic] law, that being dead wherein 
we were held; that we ‘should serve God in newness of spirit, and not 
in the oldness of the letter,” Rom. vii, 4,5, 6. Immediately after this 
glorious profession of liberty, the apostle, in his own person, by way of 
contrast, describes to the end of the chapter the poor, lame, sinful obe- 
dience of those who serve God in the oldness of the letter: so that 
nothing can be more unreasonable than to take this description for a 


description of the obedience of those who “serve God in the newness 


of the Spirit.” We have, therefore, in Rom. vii, 4,.5, 6,+a strong 
rampart against the mistake which our opponents build on the rest of 
the chapter. 

6. This mistake will appear still more astonishing, if we read Rom 
vi, where the apostle particularly describes the liberty of those who 
« serve God in newness of the spirit,” according to the glorious privileges 
of the new covenant. Is darkness more contrary to light than the pre 
ceding description of the carnal Jew is to the following description of 
the spiritual Christian? “How shall we that are’ dead to sin live any 
longer therein? Our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of 
sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we might not serve sin. [Note: 
the carnal Jew, though against his conscience, still serves the law of sin, 
Rom. vii, 25.] Now he that is dead is freed from sm. Reckon ye 
yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin. Yield yourselves unto God 


_as those that are alive from the dead. [Note: the carnal Jew says, 


« Sin revived and I died,” Rom. vii, 9, but the spiritual Christian is alive 


538 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


from the dead. ] Sin shall not have dominion over you [now you are 
spiritual : you need not say, I do the evil that I hate, and the evil I would 
not, that I do:] for you are not under the law [under the weak dispen- 
sation of Moses ;] but under grace [under the powerful, gracious dis- 
pensation of Christ.] God be thanked that [whereas] ye were the 
servants of sin, when you carnally served God in the oldness of the letter, 
ye have obeyed f from the heart the form of doctrine which was delivered 
you ; [that is, yé have heartily embraced the doctrine of Christ, who 
gives rest to all that come to him travailing and heavy laden.] Being 
then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness: for 
when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.— 
But now being—carnal, sold under sin, [ ye serve the law of sin? No: 
just the reverse :] but now being made free from sinyand become the 
servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting 
life,’ Rom. vi, 2-22. Is it possible to reconcile this:deseription of 
Christian liberty with the preceding description of Jewish bondage? 
Can a man at the same time exult in the one, and groan under the 
other? When our opponents assert it, do they not confound the Mosaic 
and the Christian dispensations ; the workings of the spirit of bondage, — 
and the workings of the Spirit of adoption? And yet, astonishing ! they 
charge us with confounding Law and GospzL ! 

7. We shall see their mistake in a still more glaring light if we pass 
to Rom. viii, and consider the description which St. Paul continues to” 
give us of the glorious liberty of those who have done with * the oldness 
of the [Jewish] letter, and serve God in newness of the Spirit.” The 
poor Jew carnally sticking in the letter, is condemned for all he does, 
if his conscience be awake. “ But there is now no condemnation to’ 
them which are in Christ Jesus, [who ate come up to the privileges of 
the Christian dispensation,] who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus [the power of 
the quickening Spirit given me, and my fellow believers, under the spi- 
ritual and perfect dispensation of Christ Jesus] hath made me free from — 
the*law of sin and death. For what the law [the letter of the Mosaic” 
dispensation] could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, 
sending his own Son, condemned sin in the flesh ; that the righteousness 
of the law,” the spiritual obedience, which the moral law of Moses, 
adopted by Christ, requires, “ might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after 
the flesh, but after the Spirit. For [so far from professing that I am 
carnal and sold under sin, I declare that] to be carnally minded is death : 
[well may then the carnal Jew groan, Who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death!| But to be spiritually minded is life and peace! So” 
then, they that are in the flesh, [i. e. carnal, sold under sin,] cannot 
please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that 
the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of 
Christ, he is none of his:” he is, at best, a disciple of Moses, a poor, 
carnal Jew, and remains still a stranger to the glorious privileges of the 
Christian dispensation. “But if Christ be in you, the body is dead, 
[weak, and full of the seeds of death,] because of [original] sin ; but the — 
spirit is life, [strong and full of immortality,] because of [implanted and 
living] righteousness. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage — 
again to fear, [like the poor, carnal man, who through fear and anguish ~ 


. 


| 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 539 


! groans out, O wretched man that Iam !| But ye have received the Spirit 


of adoption, whereby we [who walk in newness of the Spirit, and please 


_ God—we, who have the Spirit of Christ,] cry, Abba, Father! the Spirit 


itself bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God; 


_and if children, then heirs; heirs of God,” whom we please, “and joint 


heirs with Christ,” through whom we please God, Rom. viii, 1-17. 
t This glorious liberty, which God’s children enjoy in their souls, under 


= perfection of the Christian dispensation, will one day extend to their 


which are dead [i. e. infirm and condemned to die] “because of 
[original] sin.” And with respect to the body only it is that the apostle 
says, Rom. viii, 23, « We ourselves, also, who have the first fruits of 
the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption” of our out- 
ward man, “that is, the redemption of our body: for,” with respect to 
the body, whose imperfection is so great a clog to the soul, “we are 
saved by hope.” In the meantime, “we hin that all things work 


| together for good to them that love God. Who shall separate us,” that 
eye God, and walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, “from the 


love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress,” &c, do it? “Nay, mm all 

'these things,” much more in respect of sin and carnal mindedness, 

“we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us,” Rom. vill, 
i. @ : 

_ And that this abundant victory extends to the destruction of the carnal 
mind, we prove by these words of the context, “To be carnally minded 
is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace; because the 
carnal mind i is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of 
God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh,” they 
that are carnally minded, “ cannot please God. But ye are not in the 
flesh,” ye are not carnally minded, “ if so be that the Spirit of God dwell 
in you. For where the Spirit of the Lord is,” and dwells as a Spirit of 
adoption, “there is constant liberty : now if any man have not that Spirit,” 
or if he hath it only as a Spirit of bondage, to make him groan, O 
wretched man! he may indeed be a servant of God in the land of his 
spiritual captivity, but “he is none of Christ’s” freemen: he may serve 
God “in the oldness of the letter,” as a Jew; but he does not “serve 
him in newness of the Spirit,” as a Christian. For, I repeat it, “ where 
the Spirit of Christ is,” and dwells according to the fulness of the Chris- 
tian dispensation, “there is a liberty, a glorious liberty,” which is the 
very reverse of the bondage that Mr. Hill pleads for during the term of 
life: see Rom. vii, 14-21. 

Whether therefore we consider Rom. vii, Rom. vi, or Rom. viii, it 

ars indubitable, that the sense which our opponents fix upon Rom. 
vil, 14, &c, is entirely contrary to the apostle’s meaning, to the context, 


) and to the design of the whole epistle, which is to extol the privilege of 
| those who are Christ’ s, above the privileges of those who are Noah’s or 


Moses’ ; or, if you please, to extol the privileges of spiritual Christians, 
who serve God “in newness of the Spirit,” above the privileges of carnal 


| heathens and Jews, who serve him only “in the oldness of the letter.” 


940 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


SECTION VIII. 


An answer to the anes by which St. Paul’s supposed carnality Ot 
generally defended. 


Ir the sense which our opponents give to Rom. vii, 14, be true, 
doctrine of Christian perfection is a dream, and our utmost attainmen 
on earth is St. Paul’s apostolic carnality, and involuntary servitude to the 
law of sin ; with a hopeful prospect of deliverance in a death purgatory. 
It is therefore of the utmost importance to establish our exposition of 
that verse, by answering the arguments which are supposed to favour 
the Antinomian meaning rashly fixed upon that portion of Scripture. 

Are. I. “If St. Paul was not carnal and sold under sin when he 
wrote to the Romans, why does he say, ‘I am carnal? Could he not 
have said, I was carnal once, but now the law of the Spirit of life im 
Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death? Can 
give a good reason why, in Rom. vii, 14, the phrase, J am carnal, must 
mean, I was carnal? Is it right thus to substitute the past time for the 
present ?”” 

Answer. We have already shown that this figurative way of speak- 
ing is not uncommon in the Scriptures. We grant, however, that we 
ought not to depart from the literal sense of any phrase, without good 
reasons. Several such, I trust, have’ already been produced, to show 
the necessity of taking St. Paul’s words, “I am carnal,” in the sens 
stated in the ae section. I shall offer one more remark 1 2 


diced. 

The states of all souls may in general be reduced to three: ay 
That of unawakened sinners, who quietly sleep in the chains of heir 
sins, and dream of self righteousness and heaven. (2.) That of 
awakened, uneasy, reluctant sinners, who try in vain to break the ga ling 
chains of their sins. And, (3.) That of delivered sinners, or victorious 
believers, who enjoy the liberty of God’s children. This last state i 
described in Rom. vii, 4,6. The rest of that chapter is judicio 
brought in, to show how the unawakened sinner is roused out of 
carnal state, and how the awakened sinner is driven to Christ for liberty 
by the lashing and binding commandment. ‘The apostle shows this bj 
observing, ver. 7, &c, how the law makes a sinner (or if you please 
made him) pass from the unawakened to the awakened state : 
had not known sin,” says he, “but by the law,” &e. When he 
described his unawakened state without the law, and began to des 
his awakened state under the law, nothing was more natural than to 
change the time or tense. But having already used the past tense in 
the description of the first or the unawakened state; and haying said, 
“ Without the law sin was dead: I was alive without the law onee: sin 
revived and I died,” &c, he could no more use that tense, when he be 
to describe the second, or the awakened state ; I mean the state in y , 
he found himself when the commandnfént had roused his sleepy con- 
science, and slain his Pharisaic hopes. He was therefore obliged to use 
another tense ; and none, in that case, was fitter than the present; just 
as if he had said, “ When the commandment slew the conceited Pharisee 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 541 


in me; when I died to my self-righteous hopes; I did not die without a 
groan. Nor did I pass into the life of God without severe pangs: no; 
I struggled with earnestness, I complained with bitterness, and the 
language of my oppressed heart was, I am carnal, sold under sin,” 5c, 
to the end of the chapter.* It is, therefore, with the utmost rhetorical 
propriety that the apostle says, I am, and not, I was carnal, §e. But 
rhetorical propriety is not theological exactness. David may say asa 
poet, “ God was wroth: there went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and 
fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.” But it would 
be ridiculous to take these expressions in a literal sense. Nor is it 
much less absurd to assert that St. Paul’s words, “I am carnal, sold 
under sin,” are to be understood of Christian and apostolic liberty. 

Are. II. “St. Paul says to the Corinthians, ‘I write not to you as to 
spiritual men, but as to carnal, even to babes in Christ.’ Now if the 
Corinthians could be at once holy and yet carnal ; why could not St. 
Paul be at the same time an eminent, apostolic saint, and a carnal, 
wretched man, sold under sin ?” 

Answer. (1.) The Corinthians were by no means established be- 
lievers in general, for the apostle concludes his fast epistle to them by 
bidding them “examine themselves whether they were in the faith.” 
(2.) If St. Paul proved carnal still, and was to continue so till death, 
with all the body of Christian believers, why did he upbraid the Corinth- 
jans with their unavoidable carnality? Why did he wonder at it, and 
say, “Ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envyings and 
strife, &c, are ye not carnal?” Might not these carnal Corinthians 
have justly replied, Carnal physician, heal thyself? (3.) In the 
language of the apostle, to be carnal, to be carnally minded, to walk after 
the flesh, not to walk after the Spirit, and to be in the flesh, are phrases 
of the same import. This is evident from Rom. vii, 14; vii, 1-9; and 
he says, directly or indirectly, that to those who are in that state, 
“there is condemnation; that they cannot please God; and that they 
are in a state of death; because, to be carnal, or carnally minded, is 
death,” Rom. viii, 1, 6, 8. Now if he was carnal himself, does it not 
follow that he “could not please God,” and that he was in a state of 
“condemnation and death?” But how does this agree with the profes- 
sion which he immediately makes of being “led by the Spirit, of walking 
in the Spirit, and of being made free from the law of sin and death, by 
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus?” (4.) We do not deny that the 
remains of the carnal mind still cleave to imperfect Christians; and 
that, when the expression carnal is softened and qualified, it may, in a 
low sense, be applied to such professors as those Corinthians were, to 


* Some time after I had written this, looking into ‘‘ Dr. Doddridge’s Lectures 
on Divinity,” p. 451, I was agreeably surprised to find that what that judicious 
and moderate Calvinist presents as the most plausible sense of Rom. vii, 14, is 
exactly the sense which I defend in these pages. Take his own words :—‘ St. 
Paul at first represents a man as ignorant of the law, and then insensible of sin ; 
‘but afterward being acquainted with it, and then thrown into a kind of despair, 
‘by the sentence of death which it denounces, on account of sins he is now con- 
scious of having committed; he then farther shows that even where there is so 
good a disposition as to ‘delight in the law,’ yet the motives are too weak to 
maintain that uniform tenor of obedience, which a good man greatly desires, and 
which the Gospel by its superior motives and grace does in fact produce.” 


542 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


whom St. Paul said, “I could not speak to you as to spiritual. — 
could not the apostle be yet spoken to as a spiritual man? And does” 
not allow that, even in the corrupted Churches of Corinth and Gal; 
there were some truly spiritual men—some adult, perfect Christi 
See 1 Cor, xiv, 37, and Gal. vi, 1. (5.) When the apostle cails th 
divided Corinthians carnal, he immediately softens the expression by 
adding, “babes in Christ.” If therefore the word carnal is applied 
St. Paul i in this sense, it must follow that the apostle was but “a babe ii 
Christ ;” and if he was but a babe, is it not as absurd to judge of thi 
srowth of adult Christians by his growth, as to measure the stature of 
a man by that of an infant? (6.) And, lastly: the man described im 
Rom. vii, 14, is not only called carnal without any softening, qualifying 
phrase ; but the word carnal is immediately heightened by an ur.commot 
expression, “sold under sin ;” which is descriptive of the strong ges 
“ bondage of corruption.” Thus reason, Scripture, and criticism @ 
o set this argument aside. 

Are. IIL. “The carnal man, whose cause we plead, says, Rom. 3 Vil 
20, «If I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin whi 
dwelleth i in me,’ that is, in my unrenewed part: and therefore he n ight 
be an eminent, apostolic saint in his renewed part ; and a carnal, wretch 
man, sold under sin, in his unrenewed part.” * : 

Answer. 1. The apostle, speaking there as a carnal, and ye 
awakened man, who has light enough to see his sinful habits, but no 
faith and resolution enough to overcome them ; his meaning is evidently 
this :—If I, as a carnal 1 man, do what I, as oe awakened man, woul 
not; it is no more I that do it, that is, I do not do it according to m 
awakened conscience, for my conscience rises against my conduct: bu 
it is sin that dwelleth in me ; it is the tyrant sin, that has full possessior 
of me, and minds the dictates of my conscience no more than an inex 
orable task master minds the cries of an oppressed slave. 4 

2. Ifthe pure love of God was shed abroad in St. Paul’s heart and con 
strained him, he dwelt in love, and of consequence in God. Hor St 
John says, “ He that dwelleth im love, dwelleth in God, and God in 
He that is in you, is greater than he that is in the world.” Now if 
dwelt in Paul by his loving Spirit, it becomes our objectors to show 
an indwelling God and indwelling sin are one and the same thing; | 0 
that the apostle had strangely altered his doctrine when he asked, wit 
indignation, “ What concord has Christ with Belial?’ For if ind 
ing sin, the Belial within, was necessary to nestle with Christ in 
Paul’s heart, and in the hearts of all believers, should not the 'apos 
have rather cried out with admiration, “See how great is the conec¢ 
between Christ and Belial! They are inseparable! They always 
in the same heart together: and nothing ever pried them, but what 
parts man and wife, that is, death.” 

3. If a reluctance to serve the law of sin be a At that we are hol 
Paul was holy, is there not joy in heaven over the apostolic holines 
most robbers and murderers in the kingdom? Can they not sooner 
later say, “ With my mind, or conscience, I serve the law of God ; 
with my flesh the law of sin. How to perform what is good, I find not. 1 
would be honest and loving, if I could be so without denying sala 
but I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me 


Ra 
Hh 
\ 


Ns 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM 543 


| For can any thing be stronger upon this head than the words of the 
| mbuman princess, who, being at the point of committing murder, cried 
| out, “My mind, [that is, my reason or conscience,] leads me to one 
thing, but my new, impetuous passion carries me to another, agaimst my 
| will. I see, I approve what is right, but I do what is criminal.”* 

| Are. IV. “The man whose experience is described in Rom. vii, is 
| said ‘to delight in the law of God after the inward man, and to serve the 
; law of God with the mind;’ therefore he was partaker of apostolic 
holiness.” 

__ Answer. Does he not also cay, «“ With the flesh I serve the law of 
*sin?” And did not Medea say as much in her way before she imbrued her 
hands in imnocent blood? What else could she mean when she cried 
' out, “I see approve with my mind what is right, though I do what is 
} eriminal ?” not the Pharisees for a time “ rejoice in the burning and 

“shining light” of John the Baptist ? And does not an evangelist form us 
that"Herod himself heard that man of God (udzw¢) “ with delight,” and 
“did many things” too? Mark vi, 20. But is this a proof that either 
Medea, the Pharisees, or Herod had attained apostolic holiness ? 
. Are. V. “The person who describes his unavailing struggles under 
the power of sin, cries out at last, Who shall deliver me, &c, and imme- 

diately expresses a hope of future deliverance, thanking God for i, 
| ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. vii, 24, 25. Does not this show 
) that the carnal man sold under sin was a Christian believer, and, of con- 
| sequence, Paul himself?” 

' Answer. This shows only that the man sold under sin, and groaning 
for evangelical liberty, is supported under his unhappy circumstances by 
a hope of deliverance; and that when the law, like a severe school 
master, has almost brought him to Jesus Christ; when he is come to 
the borders of Canaan, and “is not far from the kingdom of God and the 
city of refuge,” he begins to look and long earnestly for Christ ; and has 
at times comfortable hopes of deliverance > through him. He has a faith 
that desires liberty, but not a faith that obtains it. He-has a degree 
_ of the “ faith to be healed,” which is mentioned Acts xix, 9; but ee has 
‘not yet the actually healing, prevailing faith. which St. John calls the 
} victory, and which is accompanied with an internal witness that ‘ Christ 
| is formed in our hearts.” It is absurd to confound the carnal man who 
_ struggles into Christ and liberty, sayimg, “ Who shall deliver me,” &e, 
"with the Spiritual man who is come to Christ, stands in his redeeming 
| power, and witnesses that “the law of the Spirit of life m Christ Jesus 

_has made him free from the law of sin and death.” The one may say, 
“in his hopeful moments, «“[ thank God, I shall have the victory, through 
Jesus Christ :” but the other can say, “I have it now. Thanks be to 
' God, who giveth us the victory though Jesus Christ our Lord,” 1 Cor. 
_ xy, 67. The one wishes for, and the other enjoys liberty : the one has 

‘meffectual desires, and the other has victorious habits. Such is the 
contrast between the carnal penitent described in Rom. vii, 14, and the 

~ obedient believer described in Rom. viii. “There is a great difference,” 
i bs says the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, « between good desires ‘and good habits. 


fen. * Sed trahit invitam nova vis, aliudque cupido, 
Lf Mens aliud suadet. Video meliora, proboque, 
“ Deteriora sequor.—Ovp. 


544 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


Many have the one who never attain the other.” Many come upgto th 
experience of a carnal penitent, who never attain the experience of an 
obedient believer. “ Many have good desires to subdue sin, and yet, res 
ing in those good desires, sin has always had the dominion over the 
with the flesh they have always served the law of sine “A person 
of a fever may desire to be in health, but that desire is not health itself,” 
(Whitefield’s Works, vol. iv, page 7.) If the Calvinists would do justice 
to this important distinction, they would soon drop the argument whic 
I answer, and the yoke of carnality which they try to fix upon St 
Paul’s neck. 

Are. VI. “You plead hard for the apostle’s spirituality ; but his ow 
plain confession shows that he was really carnal. and sold under sin, 
Does he not say to the Corinthians, that ‘there was given him a thorn 
in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, iest he should hb 
exalted abové measure, by the abundance of the revelations which ha¢ 
been vouchsafed him?’ 2 Cor. xii, 7. Now what could this ‘thorn in 
the flesh’ be, but a sinful lust? And what ‘this messenger of Satan,’ but 
pride or immoderate anger? 'Thrice he besought the Lord that these 
plagues might depart from him; but God would not hear him. Indwell. 
ing sin was to keep him humble; and if St. Paul stood in need of that 
remedy, how much more we ?” 

Answer. 1. Indwelling anger keeps us angry and not meek : indwell 
ing pride keeps us proud, and not humble. The streams answer to the 
fountain. It is absurd to suppose that a salt spring will send forth 
fresh water. 

2. You entirely mistake the apostle’s meaning. While you try ta 
make him a modest imperfectionist, you inadvertently represent him a 
an impudent Antinomian : for, speaking of his “ thorn in the flesh,” and 
of the “ buffeting of Satan’s messenger,” he calls them his infermitia 
and says, “ Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities.” Now 
if his infirmities were pride, a wrathful disposition, and a filthy lust, dit 
he not act the part of a filthy Antinomian, when he said that “he gl 
riedvin them ?” Would not even Paul’s carnal man have blushed to speak 
thus! Far from glorying in his pride, wrath, or indwelimg lust, a 
not groan, ‘“O wretched man that I am?” ’ 

3. The apostle, still speaking of his thorn in the flesh, and of Sati 
buffeting him by proxy, and still calling these trials his infirmities, ex 
plains himself farther in these words :—“ Therefore I take pleasure 
infirmities, in reproaches, in persecutions, &c, for Christ’s sake ; fe 
when I am weak, then am I strong. Christ’s strength is made perfe 
in my weakness.” Those infirmities, that thorn in the flesh, ha 
buffeting of Satan, cannot, then, be indwelling sin, or any outbreaking 
of it; for the devil himself could do no more than to take pleasur 
his BU hednesss and in Rom. vii, the carnal penitent himself delights 
“in the law of God after the inward man,” instead of taking pleasu el 
his indwelling sin. 

4, The infirmities in which St. Paul glories and takes pleasure were 
such as had been given him to keep him humble after his revelati 
“There was given to me a thorn in the flesh,” d&c, 2 Cor. xii, 
Those infirmities and that thorn were not then indwelling sin, for in. af 
dwelling sin was not given him after his visions, seeing it stuck fast in 


| 
| 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 545 

| him long before he went to Damascus. It is absurd therefore to sup- 

- pése that God gave him the thorn of indwelling sin afterward, or indeed 

that he gave it him at all. 

5. If Mr. Hill wants to know what we understand by St. Paul’s 
thorn in the flesh, and by the messenger of Satan that buffeted him ; we 
reply, that we understand his bodily infirmities—the great weakness, 
and the violent headache with which Tertullian ane St. Chrysostom 

inform us the apostle was afflicted. The same God, who said to Satan 

| concerning Job, « Behold he is in thine hand to touch his bone and his 
flesh, but save his life ;” the same God, who permitted that adversary 
| to “bind a daughter of Abraham with a spirit of bodily infirmity for 
eighteen years;” the same gracious God, I say, permitted Satan to 
afflict St. Pauls body with uncommon pains; and, at times, it seems, 
With preternatural weakness, which made his appearance and delivery 
| contemptible in the eyes of his adversaries. That this is not a conjec- 

_ ture, grounded upon uncertain tradition, is evident from the apostle’s 
own words two pages before. “His letters, say they, [that buffeted me 
in the name of Satan] are weighty and powerful; but his bodily pre- 

ence is weak, and his speech contemptible,” 2 Cor. x, 10. And soon 

‘after, describing these emissaries of the devil, he says, “Such are false 
apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of 

‘Christ, [to oppose me, and to prejudice you against my ministry +] and 

fo marvel; for Satan himself [who sets them on] is transformed into 
an angel of light,’ 2 Cor. xi, 13. But if the thorn in the flesh be all 

‘one with the buffeting messenger of Satan, St. Paul’s meaning is evi- 
dently this :—“God, who suffered the Canaanites to be scourges in the 

Sides of the Israelites, and thorns in their eyes, Josh. xxiii, 13, has suf- 
fered Satan to bruise my heel, while I bruise his head: and that adver- 
sary afflicts me thus, by his thorns and pricking briers, that is, by false 
apostles, who buffet me through malicious misrepresentations which ren- 
der me vile in your sight.” This sense is strongly countenanced by these 
words of Ezekiel :—*« They shall know that I am the Lord, and there shall 

“be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn 

Of all that are round about them that despised them,” Ezek. xxvin, 24. 
Both these senses agree with reason and godliness, with the text and 

the context. Satan immediately pierced the apostle’s body with preterna- 

tural pain; and, by the malice of false brethren, the opposition of false 
apostles within the Church, and the fierceness of cruel persecutors 

Without, he immediately endeayoured to cast down or destroy the zeal- 

‘ous apostle. But Paul walked in the perfect way, and we may well say 

‘of him, what was said of Job on a similar occasion, “In all this, Paul 

Sinned not,” as appears from his own words in this very epistle: “I am 

exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. Our flesh had no rest, but 

We were troubled on every side: without the Church were fightings, 

"within were fears :” we had furious opposition from the heathens with- 

out ; and within, we feared lest our brethren should be discouraged by 

-he number and violence of our adversaries: “nevertheless God, who 

-comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us. We are troubled 

Yon every side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always 

oetiad i in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. For which 

oL. Li. » 35 


q 


ie ' 
546 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish” through the 
thorns in our flesh, and the bufletings of Satan, “ yet the inward mai 
is renewed day by day ;” it grows stronger and stronger in the Lom 
When I see St. Paul bear up with such undaunted fortitude, under the 
bruising hand of Satan’s messengers, and the pungent operation of thi 
“thorns in his flesh,” methinks 1 see the general of the Christians 
waiving the standard of Christian perfection, and erying, “ Be ye fo 
lowers of me.” Be wholly spiritual. “Take unto you the whol 
armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, an 
having done all, to stand,” and to witness with me, that “in all these 
things we’are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” 

Are. VIL. “You extol the apostle too much. He certainly was 
carnal man still ; for St. Luke informs us, that the coed: [wapogvopos] 
was so sharp between Barnabas and him, that they departed asundei 
one from the other, Acts xv, 39. Now charity [s ropofuveras] is no 
provoked, or does not contend. Strife or contention is one of the fruit 
of the flesh, and if St. Paul bore that fruit, I do not see why you shouk 
scruple to call him.a carnal, wretched man, sold under sin.” 

Answer. 1. Every contention is not sinful. The apostle says him 
self, “ Contend for the faith. Be angry and sin not. It is good to b 
zealously affected always in a good thing.” Jesus Christ did not break 
the law of love, when he looked round with anger upon the Pharisee 
“being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.” Nor does Mose 
charge sin upon God, where he says, “The Lord rooted them out of 
their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation.” If St 
Paul had contended in an uncharitable manner, I would directly grat 
that in that hour he fell from Christian perfection; for we assert, tha 
as a carnal professor may occasionally cross Jordan, take a turn int 
the good land, and come back into the wilderness, as the spies did u 
the days of Joshua; so a spiritual man, who lives in Canaan, may o 
casionally draw back, and take a turn in the wilderness, especial 
before he is “ strengthened, established, and settled” under his heavenl 
vine, in the good land that flows with spiritual milk and honey. Bi 
this was not the apostle’s case. There is not the least intimation give 
of his sinning in the affair. Barnabas, says the historian, determine 
to take with them his own nephew, John Mark; but Paul thought m 
good to do it, because, when they had tried him before, he went not wi 
them to the work, but departed from them from Pamphylia, Acts xv, 38 
Now by every rule of reason and Scripture, Paul was in the right: f 
we are to try the spirits, and lovingly to beware of men, especially | 
such men as have already made us smart by their cowardly ficklenes' 
as John Mark had done, when he had left the itinerant apostles in th 
midst of their dangers. 

With respect to the word (apoZvcu.G~) contention or provoking, it i 
used in a good, as well as in a bad sense. Thus, Heb. x, 24, we re 
of (rapogucuov wyanns) a contention or a provoking unto love and 
works. And therefore, granting that a grain of partiality to his ne 
made Barnabas stretch too much that fine saying, “ Charity hopet 
things ;” yet, from the circumstances of Barnabas’ parting with St. | 
we have not the least proof that St. Paul stained at all his Chri 
_perfection in the affair, ie Rie de 


a 
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 547 


if the reader will properly weigh these answers to the arguments, by 

_ which our opponents try to stain the character of St. Paul as a spiritual 

man, he will see, I hope, that the apostle is as much misrepresented by 
Mr. Hill’s doctrine, as Christian perfection is by his fictitious creed. 


; 

\ 

SECTION IX. 

_ St. Paul, instead of owning himself a “carnal man,” still “sold under 

| sin,” presents us with a striking picture of the perfect Christian, by 

__ oecasionally describing his own spirituality and heavenly mindedness - 
and therefore his genuine experiences are so many proofs that Chris- 
tian perfection is attainable, and has actually been attained in this 
life—What Si. Augustine and the Rev. Mr. Whitefield once thought 
of Rom. vii—And how near this last divine, and the Rev. Mr. Ro- 

- maine, sometimes come to the doctrine of Christian perfection. 


} 

| 

i . . 

| Mr. Hitx’s mistake, with respect to St. Paul’s supposed carnality, is 
_ so much the more astonishing, as the apostle’s professed spirituality not 
; y clears him, but demonstrates the truth of our doctrine. Having 
| therefore rescued his character from under the feet of those who tread 
his honour in the dust, and sell his person under sin at an Antinomian 
market, I shall retort the argument of our opponents ; and appealing to 
: 


St. Paul’s genuine and undoubted experiences, when he taught wisdom 
“among the perfect,” I shall present the reader with a picture of the 
_ perfect Christian, drawn at full length. Nor need I inform Mr. Hill 
that the misrepresented apostle sits for his own picture before the glass 
of evangelical sincerity; and that, turning spiritual self painter, with 
the pencil of a good conscience, and with colours mixed by the Spirit 
of truth, the draws this admirable portrait from the life 
| Be followers of me. This one thing I do; leaving the things that 
_are behind, I press toward the mark for the prize of the heavenly calling 
[a crown of glory.] Charity is the bond of perfection. ‘Love is the 
fulfilling of the law. IfI have not charity, I am nothing.” And what 
charity or love St. Paul had, appears from Christ’s words and from his 
own. “Greater [i. e. more perfect] love hath no man than this,” says 
our Lord, “that he lay down his life for his friends.” Now, this very 
love Paul had for Christ, for souls, yea, for the souls of his fiercest ad- 
yersaries, the Jews. Hear him :—“ The love of Christ constraineth us. 
For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. [long to depart and to be 
with Christ. I count not my life dear unto myself, that I may finish my 
course with joy. I am ready not to be bound only, but to die also for 
the name of the Lord Jesus. If I be offered upon the sacrifice and ser- 


| yice of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.” And in the next 
. L chapter but one to that in which the apostle is supposed to profess him- 
-) self actually “sold under sin,” he professes perfect love to his sworn 
) enemies ; even that love by which “the righteousness of the law is ful- 
| filled in them who walk after the Spirit.” Hear him :—«I say the truth 
| in Christ, I lie not ; my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy 
| Ghost, that I, &c, could wish that myself were accursed, i. e. made a 
curse (aso Xpicrs) after the example of Christ, for my kinsmen accord- 

| ing to the flesh ;” meaning his inexorable, bloody persecutors, the Jews. 


Z 


n : 
548 LAST omiaien TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


Nor was this love of St. Paul like a land flood : it constantly flow 
like a river. This living water sprang up constantly in his soul: 
ness these words :—“ Remember, that, by the space of three year 
ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. Of many is 
told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they mind e 
things: for our conversation is in heaven. Our rejoicing is this, th 
testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, n¢ 
with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our cony 
sation in the world. I know nothing [i. e. no evil] by [or of ] myse 
We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. Whether we ai 
beside [i. e. carried out beyond] ourselves, it is to God: or whether " 
be sober, [i. e. calm,] it is for your cause :*[i. e. the love of God 2 
man is the only source of all my tempers.] Giving no offence in ¢ 
thing, but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of Cody 
much patience, by pureness, by kindness, by love unfeigned ; bein 
filled with comfort, and exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. I wi 
gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I loy 
you, the less I be loved: {a rare instance this, of the most perfect love! 
We speak before God in Christ, we do all things, dearly beloved, fo 
your edifying. I am crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live, yet no 
I, [see here the destruction of sinful self!} but Christ liveth in me; an 
the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God 
As always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whethe 
it be by life or by death: we worship God in the spirit, and rejoice i 
Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh: Mark them who wal 
so, as ye have us for an example. I have learned, in whatsoever st a 
I am, therewith to be content; every where and in all things I am & 
structed, both to abound and to suffer need: I can do all things throug 
Christ who strengtheneth me. Teaching every man in all wisdom, thé 
I may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus; whereunto also 
labour, striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily! 

This description of the perfect Christian, and of St. Paul, is so exceet 
ingly glorious, and it appears to me such a refutation of the Calvi 
mistake which I oppose, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure, and m 
readers the edification of seeing the misrepresented apostle give his ow 
lovely picture a few more finishing strokes :—*“ We speak not as ple 
ing men,” says he, “ but as pleasing God, who trieth our hearts. F 
neither at any time used we flattering words, &c, God is witness; 1 
of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others. But we wer 
gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. oo 
affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted to y 
not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls ; labouring “con 
day, because we would not be chargeable to any of you. Ye are wi 
nesses, and God also, how holily, “and justly, and unblamably we I 
haved ourselves among you. The Lord make you abound in love ¢ 
toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you. Ch } 
hast fully known my manner of life, purpose, faith; long suffering 
charity; patience: I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid 
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the air Ju 
give in that day. ‘eli 

aithes I cue this wonderful experience of: St. Paul, 1 


: 
le : LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 549 


' self, and see his doctrine of Christian perfection so gloriously exempli- 
- fied in his own tempers and conduct, I am surprised that good men 
_ should still confound Saul the Jew with Pavt rue Curistran : and should 
_ take the son of “the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her 

children,” for the’son of “the Jerusalem from above, which is free, and 
1s the mother of us all, who stand in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
' made us free.” But, upon second thoughts, I wonder no more : for if 
those who engross to themselves the title of Catholics, can believe that 
Christ took his own body into his own fingers, broke it through the mid- 
die, when he took bread, broke it, and said, “This is my body which is 
_ broken for you;” why cannot those who monopolize the name of ortho- 
dox among us, believe also that St. Paul spoke with a figure when he 
_ said, “<1 am carnal, and sold under sin, and brought into captivity to the 
law of sin which isin my members. Brethren, I beseech you be as I 
am: those things which ye have heard and seen in me, do, and the God 
__ of peace shall be with you.’ Now you have heard and seen, ‘that the 
evil which I would not, that I do; and that with my flesh I serve the 
law of sin.’ In short, you have heard and seen that ‘I am carnal and 
sold under sin.’” 

_ Tam not at all surprised that carnal and injudicious professors should 
contend for this contradictory doctrine, this flesh-pleasing standard of 
Calvinian inconsistency and Christian imperfection. But that good, and 
in other respects judicious men, should so zealously contend for it, ap- 
pears to me astonishing. They can never design to confound carnal 
bondage with evangelical liberty, and St. Paul’s Christian experience 
with that of Medea, and « Mr. Fulsome,” in order to countenance gross 
Antinomianism: nor can they take any pleasure in misrepresenting the 
holy apostle. Why do they then patronize so great a mistake? I answer 
sull, By the same reason which makes pious Papists believe that conse- 
crated bread is the real flesh of Christ. Their priests and the pope say 
_ SO: some figurative expressions of our Lord seem to countenance their 
Saying. We Protestants, whom the Papists call carnal reasoners and 
heretics, are of a different sentiment: and should they believe as we da, 
their humility and orthodoxy would be in danger. Apply this to the 
present case. Calvinian divines and St. Augustine affirm that St. Paul 
_ humbly spake his present experience when he said, I am carnal, &c. 
We, who are called “ Arminians and perfectionists,” think the contrary ; 
and our pious opponents suppose that if they thought as we do, they 
_ should lose their humility and orthodoxy. Their error therefore springs 
chiefly from mistaken fears, and not from wilful opposition to truth. 
Nor is St. Augustine fully for our opponents : we have our part in the 

bishop of Hippo as well as they. If he was for them when his contro- 
yersy with Pelagius had heated him; he was for us when he yet stood 
upon the Scriptural line of moderation. Then he fairly owned that the 
_ man whom the apostle personates in Romans vii, is homo sub lege positus 
ante gratiam; “a man under the [condemning, irritating] power of the 
law, who is yet a stranger to the liberty and power of Chnist’s Gospel.” 

Therefore, if Mr. Hill claim St. Augustine, the prejudiced controvertist, 
we claim St. Augustine, the unprejudiced father of the Church; or 
rather, setting aside his dubious authority, we continue our appeal to 
unprejudiced reason and plain Scripture. 


aq 


550 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, 


What I say of St. Augustirte may be said of the Rey. Mr. Whitefield. 
Before he had embraced St. Augustine’s mistakes, which are known 
among us by the name of & Calvinism,” he believed, as well as tha 
father, that the disconsolate man who groans, Who shall deliver me? is 
not a possessor but a seeker of Christian liberty. ‘To prove it, I need 
only transcribe the latter part of his sermon, entitled, The Marks of the 
New Birth :— ; 

“Thirdly,” says he, “I address myself to those who are under 
drawings of the Father, and are going through the Spirit of bondag 
but, not finding the marks [of the new birth] before mentioned, are ever 
crying out, [as the carnal penitent, Rom. vii,] Who shall deliver us from 
the body of this death? Despair not: for, notwithstanding your present 
trouble, it may be the Divine pleasure to give you the kingdom.” 
Hence it appears that Mr. Whitefield did not look upon such mourners 
as Christian believers ; but only as persons who might become such if 
they earnestly sought. He therefore most judiciously exhorts them : 
seek till they find. “The grace of God, through Jesus Christ,”, adda S 
he, “is able to deliver you, and give you what you want; even you may 
receive the Spirit of adoption, the promise of the Father. All things 
are possible with him; persevere, therefore, in seeking, and determine 
te find no rest in your spirit, till you know and feel that you are thus 
born again from above, and God’s Spirit witnesses with your spirits that 
you are the children of God.” 

What immediately follows is a demonstration that, at that time, Mr. 
Whitefield was no enemy to Christian perfection, and thought that some 
had actually attained it; or else nothing would have been more trifling 
than his concluding address to perfect Christians. Take his own words, 
and remember that when he preached them, by the ardour of his zeal, 
and the devotedness of his heart, he showed himself a young man m 
Christ, able to trample under foot the most alluring baits of the flesh 
and of the world. 

“ Fourthly and lastly,” says he, «I address myself to those who have 
received the Holy Ghost in all its sanctifying graces, and are a 
ripe for glory. Hail, happy saints! For your heayen is begun upo 
earth. You have already received the first fruits of the Spirit, and a 
patiently waiting till that blessed change come, when your harvest shall i] 
be complete. I see and admire you, though, alas, at* so great a dis- 
tance from you. Your life, I know, is hid with Christ n God. You 
have comforts, you have meat to eat, which a sinful, carnal world knows 
nothing of. Christ’s yoke is now become easy to you, and his burden 
light: you have passed through the pangs of the new birth, and now 


* At that time Mr. Whitefield was m oreers, and had ‘received the Spirit 
adoption.” As a proof of it, I appeal, (1.) To the account of his conversion at 
Oxford, before he was ordained ; and, (2.) To these his own words: “I cansa 
to the honour ofetich, free, distinguishing g grace, that I received the Spirit 
adoption before I had conversed with one man, or read a single book on | 
doctrine of free justification by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.” T. 
is, before he had any opportunity of being drawn from the simplicity of ue Ss 
ture Gospel, into the Calyinian refinements. (See his Works, vol, iv, 
Now, those "Christians, who leave babes and young men in Christ “at ve 
distance from them,” are the very persons whom we call “fath 
‘* perfect Christians.” + 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. S51 


rejoice that Christ Jesus is fermed in your hearts. You know what it 
is to dwell in Christ, and Christ in you. Like Jacob’s ladder, although 
your bodies are on earth, yet your souls and hearts are in heaven; and 
by your faith and constant recollection, like the blessed angels, you do 
always behold the face of your Father, which is in heaven. Ineed not 
then exhort you to press forward, Sc. Rather I will exhort you in 
patience to possess your souls: yet a little while, and Jesus Christ will. 
deliver you from the burden of the flesh, and an abundant entrance shall 
be administered unto you into the eternal joy, &c, of his heavenly king- 
dom.” I have met with few descriptions of the perfect Christian that 


_ please me better. JI make but one objection to it: Mr. Whitefield 


thought that the believers who “by constant recollection, like the blessed 
angels, always behold the face of their Father,” are so advanced in 

ce, that they “need not to be exhorted to press forward.” This is 
carrying the doctrine of perfection higher than Mr. Wesley ever did. 


_ For my part, were I to preach to a congregation of such “ happy saints,” 


I would not scruple taking this text: “So run that ye may [eternally] 
obtain :” nor would I forget to set before them the example of the per- 
fect apostle, who said, “This one thing I do, leaving the things that are 
behind, and reaching forth, I press toward the mark,” &c. Had I been 
in Mr. Whitefield’s case, I own I would either have refused to join 
the imperfectionists, or I would have recanted my address to perfect 
Christians. 

So strong is the Scriptural tide in favour of our doctrine, that it some- 
times carried away the Rev. Mr. Romaine himself. Nor can I confirm 
the wavering reader in his belief of the possibility of obtaining the 
glorious liberty which we contend for, better than by transcribing a fine 
exhortation of that great minister, to what we call Christian perfection, 
and what he calls the walk of faith :— 

“ The new covenant runs thus :—‘I will put,’ says God, ‘my law in 
their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, &c. The Lord here 
engages to take away the stony heart, and to give a heart of flesh, upon 
which he will write the ten commandments, &c. The love of God will 
open the contracted heart, enlarge the selfish, warm the cold, and bring 
liberality out of the covetous. When the Holy Spirit teaches brotherly 
love, he overcomes all opposition to it, &c. He writes upon their hearts 
the two great commandments, ‘ on which hang all the law and the pro- 
phets. The love of God,’ says the apostle to the Romans, ‘is shed 


-abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost ;? and to the Thessalonians, 


*Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.’ Thus he 
engages the soul to the holy law, and inclines the inner man to love 
obedience. It ceases to be a yoke and a burden. How easy is it to do 
what one loves! Ifyou dearly love any person, what a pleasure it is to 
serve him! What will not love put you upon doing or suffering to 


_ oblige him! Let love rule in the heart to God and to man, his law will 


then become delightful, and obedience to it will be pleasantness. The 
soul will run; yea, inspired by love, it will mount up with wings as 
eagles, in the way of God's commandments. Happy are the people 
that are m such a case.” Now, such a case is what we call, the stale 
of Christian perfection; to the obtaining of which, Mr. Romaine excites 
his own me the following excellent exhortation :— 


ol 


*. zs 


»' i 


“ This is the very tenor of the covenant of grace, which the almig 
Spirit has undertaken to fulfil, [if we mix faith with the promises, 2 
Mr. Romaine himself will soon intimate,] and he cannot fail in his offie 
It is his crown and glory to make good his covenant engagements. O 
trust him then, and put honour upon his faithfulness, [that is, if I mistake _ 
not, make good your own covenant engagements.| He has promised | 
to guide thee with his counsel, and to strengthen thee with his might, 
&c. What is within thee, or without thee, to oppose thy walking in 
love with him, he will incline thee to resist, and he will enable thee te . 
overcome. O what mayest thou not expect from such a Divine Friend, — 
who is to abide with thee on purpose to keep thine heart right with 
God! [Query: when the heart is kept full of indwelling sin, is it kept | 
right with God?] What cannot he do? What will he not do for thee? ~ 
Such as is the love of the Father and of the Son, such is the love of the 
Holy Ghost: the same free, perfect, everlasting love. Read his pro-~ 
mises of it. Meditate on them. Pray to him for increasing faith to” 
mix with them; that he [not sin] dwelling in the temple of thy heart, 
thou mayest have fellowship there with the Father and with the Son. 
Whatever in thee is pardoned through the Son’s atonement, pray the 
Holy Spirit to subdue, that it may not interrupt communion with thy 
God. And whatever grace is to be received out of the fulness of Jesus, 
in order to keep up and promote that communion, entreat the Holy” 
Spirit to give it thee with growing strength. But pray in faith, nothing 
wavering. So shall the love of God rule in thy heart. And then thou | 
shalt be like the sun, when it goeth forth in its might, shining clearer 
and clearer to the perfect day. O may thy course be like his, as free, 
as regular, and as communicative of good, that thy daily petition may be 
answered, and that the will of thy Father may be done on earth, as it is 
in heaven.” (Walk of Faith, vol. i, page 227, &e.) p, 

I do not producesthis excellent quotation to insinuate that the Rey. — 
Mr. Romaine is a perfectionist, but only to edify the reader, and to show 
that the good, mistaken men, who are most prejudiced against our doc. 
trine, see it sometimes so true, and so excellent, that, forgetting them 
pleas for indwelling sin, they intimate that our daily petitions may be 
” answered ; and that the “ will of our Father may be done. on-earth 
is in heaven;” ’ an expression this, which includes the height and depth a 
of all Christian perfection. 


502 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, 


| 


ry 


SECTION X. 


St. John is for Christian perfection, and not for a death peers 7 
1 John i, 8, Fe, is explained agreeably to St. John’s design, the con 
teat, and the vein of holy doctrine which runs : er the rest of the 
episile. 


/~ 
€ 


Tue Scriptures declare that “we are built upon the foundation of” 
the apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone:” a 
St. Paul being deservedly considered as the chief of the ape ost! 
of consequence as the chief stone of the foundation on whieh, 
the corner stone, our holy religion is built, who can wond a 


. 
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 553 


pains which our opponents take to represent this important part of our 
foundation as carnal, wretched, and sold under sin? Does not every 
) body see that such a foundation becomes the Antinomian structure 
) which is raised upon it? And is it not incumbent upon the opposers of 
| Antmonuanism to uncover that wretched foundation by removing the 
} heaps of dirt in which St. Paul’s spirituality is daily buried; and by this 
means to rescue the holy aposile, whom our adversaries esukccimeae to 
sell under sin,” as a carnal wretch? This rescue has been atiempted 
in the four last sections. If I have succeeded in this charitable attempt, 
I may proceed to vindicate the holiness of St. John, who is the last 
apostle that Mr. Hill calls to the help of indwelling sin, Christian im- 
perfection, and a death purgatory. 
_ Before I show how the loving apostle is pressed into a service which 
is so contrary-to his experience, and to his doctrine of perfect love, I 
Shall make a preliminary remark. To take a passage of Scripture out 
from the context, and to make it speak a language contrary to the 
obyious design of the sacred writer, is the way to butcher the body of 
Scriptural divinity. This conduct injures truth, as much as the Gala- 
| tians would have injured themselves, if they had literally “pulled their 
) yes out, and given them to St. Paul:” an edifying passage, thus dis- 
‘placed, may become as loathsome to a ‘moral mind, as-a good eye, torn 
out of its bleeding orb in a good face, is odious to a tender heart. 
__ Among the passages which have been thus treated, none has suffered 
More yiolence than this :—“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” 1 John i, 8. “That’s enough for 
me,” says a hasty imperfectionist: “St. John clearly pleads for the 
indwelling of sin in us during the term of life ; and he is so set against 
those who profess deliverance from sin, and Christian perfection m 
this life, that he does not scruple to represent them as lars and self 
deceivers.” 
Our opponents suppose that this argument is unanswerable. But to 
} convince them that they are mistaken, we need only prove that the 
) sense which they so confidently give to the words of St. John is con- 
‘rary, (1.) To his design. (2.) To the context. And, (3.) To the pure 
pee strict doctrine which he enforces in the rest of the epistle. 
et: With respect to St. John’s design, it evidently was to confirm be- 
jevers who were in danger of being deceived by Antinomian and anti- 
christian seducers. When -he wrote this epistle, the Church began to 
be corrupted by men, who, under pretence of knowing the mysteries of 
} the Gospel better than the apostles, imposed upon the simple Jewish 
| fables, heathenish dreams, or vain, philosophic speculations ; insinuating 
that their doctrinal peculiarities were the very marrow of the Gospel. 
Many such arose at the time of the reformation, who introduced stoical 
dreams into Protestantism, and whom Bishop Latimer and others steadily 
opposed under the name of “ Gospellers.” 
The doctrines of all these Gospellers centred in making Christ, indi- 

rectly at least, the minister of sin; and in representing the preachers of 
practical, self-denying Christianity, as persons unacquainted with Chris- 
_ tian liberty. It does not indeed appear that the Gnostics, or knowing 
ones, (for so the ancient Gospellers were called,) carried matters so far 
_as openly to s say that believers-smight be God’s dear children in the very 


-—~ ' 
7 er «4 
- s 


. 
554 LAST CHECK TO. ANTINOMIANISM. 
commission of adultery and murder, or while they worshipped Milcon 
and Ashtaroth: but it is certain that they could already reconcile the 
verbal denial of Christ, fornication and idolatrous feasting, with true 
faith ; directly or indirectly “teaching and seducing Chrisi’s servants 
to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols,” Rev. ii, 20. 
At these Antinomians, St. Peter, St. James, and St. Jude, levelled their 
epistles. St. Paul strongly cautioned Timothy, Titus, and the Ephesians 
against them: see Eph. iv, 14; v, 6. And St. John wrote his first 
epistle to warn the believers who had not yet been seduced into thei 
error: a dreadful, though pleasing error this, which, by degrees, led 
some to deny Christ’s law, and then his very name; hence the triumph 
of the spirit of antichrist. Now, as these men insinuated that believers 
might be righteous without doing righteousness ; and as they suppose¢ 
that Christ’s righteousness, or our own hnowledge and faith, would oappl 
the want of internal sanctification and external obedience; St. John 
maintains against them the necessity of that practical godliness whieh 
consists in not “committing sin,” and in “walking as Christ walked :?_ 
nay, he asserts that Christ’s “blood, through the faith which is our victory, 
purifies “from all sin, and cleanses from all unrighteousness.” —'To 
make him, therefore, plead for the necessary continuance of indwelling 
sin, till we go into a death purgatory, is evidently to make him defeat 
his own design. a 

Il. To be more convinced of it, we need only read the controverted 
text in connection with the conrExrT ; illustrating both by some notes in 
brackets. St. John opens his commission thus, First Epistle i, 5, 6, 7 :-—_ 
“This is the message which we have received of him [Christ] am 
declare unto you, that God is light, [bright, transcendent purity,] and in 
him is no darkness [no impurity] at all. If we [believers] say that v 
have fellowship with him, [that we are united to him by an actual 
living faith,] and walk in darkness, [in impurity or sin, | we lie, and d 
not the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, [if w 
live up to our Christian light and do righteousness, | we have fellowshif 
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us 
from all sin. For let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness 
is righteous, even as he, Christ, is righteous; and in him is no sin,” 
1 John iii, 5, 7. So far we see no plea, either for sin, or for the 
vinian purgatory. 

Should Mr. Hill reply, that “when St«John says, ‘ The blood i 0 
Christ cleanseth us from all sin,’ the apostle does not mean all indwellin 
sin; because this is a sin from which death alune can cleanse us :” 
demand a proof, and in the meantime we answer, that St. John, in the 
above-quoted passages, says, that “ he who does righteousness,” in the 
full sense of the word, “is righteous, as Christ is righteous ;” observi 
that “in him [Christ] is no sin.” So certain, then, as there is” 
indwelling sin in Christ, there is no indwelling sin in a believer who does 
righteousness in the full sense of the word; for he is made “ pam in 
love,” and is “cleansed from all sin.” Nor was St. John } 
ashamed to profess this glorious liberty ; for he said, “ Our loye 
perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment 3 
he [Christ] is [perfect in love, and of consequence without 
we in this world,” 1 John iv, 17. And-the whole context s 


= 


vs 
vi 


*',.” > 


— 
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 555 


|) the beloved apostle spake these great wonds of a likeness to Christ with 
pa a fulfils the law, abolishes tormenting 

eee Belewee to stand with bokincs i the depat pale 

~” as being and « conformed to the image of God’s Son.” 
Hill urge that «the blood of Christ, powerfully applied by the 
or or amelie apie hag ee 
c having a reference to justification and pardon, but not to 
cation and holiness:” we reply, that this argument is not only 
atrar yto the preceding answer, but to the text, the context, and other 
— (1.) To the teat, where our being cleansed from all sm 

suspended on our humble and faithful walk: «If we walk 


hi as he is im the light, the blood of Christ cleanses us,” &c. 
Now every novice m Gospel grace knows that true Protestants do not 
@ simner’s justification on his “ walking im the light as God is m 
the ight.” (2.) It is contrary to the context; for in the next verse but 
_ ane, where Si. John evidently distinguishes forgiveness and holiness, he 
| peculiarly applies the word cleansing to the latter of these blessmgs: © 
_ “He is faithful to forgive us our sin,” by taking away our guilt; “and 
ee nn by taking away all the filth of 
2B sin. And, (3.) It is contrary to other places of Scripture, 
. (Christ’s blood is represented as having a reference to purification, 
£ a God himself says, “ Wash ye; make you 
ed of your dames; cease’to do evil; learn to do 
well.” The washing and cleansing here spoken of, have undoubiedly a 
teference to the removal of the filth, as well as the guilt of sn. Accord- 
) ingly we read that all those who “stand before the throne, have both 
washed their robes, and made them white im the blood of the Lamb;” 
» that is, they are jusiified by, and sanctified with his blood. Hence our 
Church prays “that we may so eat the fiesh of Christ, and dnnk his 
blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our 
+ souls washed fi. e. made clean also] through his most precious blood.” 
Do rob Chnist’s blood of its sanctifymg power, and to confine its efficacy 
atonement, is therefore an Antmomian mistake, by which our 
greatly injure the Saviour, whom they pretend to exalt. 
, Mr. Hill assert, that “ when St. John says, If we waik in the 
| light, &c, the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, the loving apostle’s 
‘ meaning is not that the blood of Christ radicaily cleanses us, but only 
| that it begets and carries on: a cleansing from all sin, which cleansing 
; wall be completed ima death purgatory :” we answer : (1.) This assertion 
" Mr. Hill's doctrine open to all ithe above-mentioned difficulties. 
.) It overthrows the docirine of the Protestants, who have always 
that nothing is absolutely necessary to eternal salvation, and, 
to our perfect cleansing, but an obedient, steadfast faith, 
the full virtue of Christ’s purifying blood, according to 
ce 9,“ God giving them the Holy Ghost, put no difference between 
us, purifying their hearts by faith,”—not by death. (3.) Itis 
hea Enoch and Elijah having been translated to 
, and therefore having been perfecily purified even m body, with- 
song H ee y- But, (4.) What displeases us 
ihe evasive argument which I answer, is, that it puts the greatest 


556 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


who sincerely wait to be now “made perfect in love,” that they may 
now worthily magnify God’s holy name. 
An illustration will prove it. I suppose that Christ is now in Engla ni 
‘doing as many wonderful cures as he formerly did in Judea. — 
benevolent opponent runs to the Salop infirmary, and tells all the patie 
there that the great Physician, the Son of God, has once more visi 
the earth; and he again “heals all manner of sickness and diseases 
among the people, and cleanses” from the most inveterate leprosy by a 
touch or a word. All the patients believe Mr. Hill; some hop to thi 
wonderful Saviour, and others are carried to his footatonll They touch 
and retouch him; he strokes them round again and again: but not one 
of them is ea The wounds of some, indeed, are skinned over for 
a time ; but it soon appears that they still fester at the bottom, and that 
a painful core remains unextracted in every sore. ‘The poor creatur 
ow to Mr. Hill, « Did you not, sir, assure us upon your honour, 
a Christian gentleman, that Christ heals all manner of diseases, and 
pao from all kinds of leprosies?” «'True,” says Mr. Hill; but 
you must know that these words do not mean ‘that he radically cures 
any disease, or cleanses from any leprosy: they only signify that hi 
begins to cure every disease, and continues to cleanse from all soar ; 
but notwithstanding all his cures, begun and continued, nobody is cure 
before death. So, my friends, you must bear your festering sores as 
well as you can, till death comes radically to cleanse and cure you 
them all.” Instead of crying, “ Sweet grace! “Rich grace!” and 
clapping Mr. Hill for his evangelical message, the disappointed patie 
desire him to take them back to the infirmary, saying, “ We have there 
a chance for a cure before death ; but your great Physician pronounces 
us incurable, unless death comes to the help of his art: and we think 
that any surgeon could do as much, if he did not do more.” (See sec. xii 
argument xx.) ¢ 
If Mr. Hill say that I beat the air, and that the text-which he que les 
in his “ Creed for Perfectionists,” to show that it is impossible to he 
cleansed from all sin before death, is not 1 John i, 7, but the next ver 
reply, that if St. John assert in the seventh verse that “ Christ’s bloo 
powerfully applied by the Spirit of faith, « cleanses us from all sin,’ 
inspired writer cannot be so exceedingly inconsistent as to contradi 
himself in the very next verse. ; 
Should the reader ask, “ What then can be St. John’s mesnilemy 
that verse, where he declares that ‘ if we say that we have no sin, 
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us? How ean these word 
possibly agree with the doctrine of a perfect cleansing from all sin ? Lis 
We answer, that St. John having given his first stroke to the Ar 
nomian believers of his day, strikes, by the by, a blow at Phari 
professors. There were in St. John’s time, as there are in our owl 
numbers of men who had never been properly convinced of sin, 2 
who boasted, as Paul once did, that touching the righteousness 0 th 
law, they were blameless; they served God; they did their duty; the 
gave alms; they never did any body any harm ; they hae 
they were not as other men; but especially that they wer 
those mourners in Sion, who were no doubt very wicked, six 
made so much ado about God’s meicy, and a powerful appli 


ee 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 557 


the Redeemer’s all-cleansing blood. How proper then was it for St. 
John to inform his readers that these whole-hearted Christians, these 
perfect Pharisees, were no better than liars and self decewvers ; and that 
true Christian righteousness is always attended by a genuine conviction 
of our native depravity, and by an humble acknowledgment of our actual 
transgressions. 

This being premised, it appears that the text so dear to us, and so 
mistaken by our opponents, has this fair, Scriptural meaning :—“If we 
{followers of Him who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to re- 
pentance] say, We have no sin [no native depravity from our first pa- 
rents, and no actwal sin, at least no such sin as deserves God’s wrath; 
fancying we need not secure a particular application of Christ’s atoning 


and purifying blood] we deceive ourselves, and the truth [of repentance 


and faith] is not in us.” 

That the words are levelled at the monstrous error of self-conceited, 

and self-perfected Pharisees, and not at “the glorious liberty of the 
children of God,” appears to us indubitable from the following reasons : 
(1.) The immediately preceding verse strongly asserts this liberty. (2.) 
The verse immediately following secures it also, and cuts down, the doc- 
trine of our opponents; the apostle’s meaning being evidently this :— 
“Though I write to you, that ‘if we say’ we are originally free from 
sin, and neyer did any harm, ‘ we deceive ourselves ;’ yet, mistake me 
not: I do not mean to, continue under the guilt, or in thé moral infection 
of any sin, original or actual. For if we penitently and believingly con- 
fess both, ‘he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness,’ whether it be native or self contracted, 
internal or external. Therefore, if we have attained the glorious liberty 
of God’s children, we need not, through voluntary humility, say that we 
do nothing but sin. It will be sufficient, when we are ‘cleansed from 
all unrighteousness,’ still to be deeply humbled for our present infirmities, 
and for our past sins ; confessing both with godly sorrow and filial shame. 
For if we should say, ‘ We have not sinned, [note: St. John does not. 
write, If we should say, WE vo Nor stn,] we make him a liar, and the 
truth is not in us;’ common sense dictating that if ‘ we have not sinned,* 
we speak an untruth when we profess that Christ has forgiven our sins.” 
This appears to us the true ineaning of 1 John 1, 8, when it is fairly 
considered in the light of the context. 

Ili. We humbly hope that Mr. Hill himself will be of our sentiment 
if he compare the verse in debate with the pure and strict doctrine which 
St. John enforces throughout his epistle. In the second chapter he says, 
* We lmow that we know him, if we keep his commandments, &c. 
Whoso krEPETH His worD, in him verily is the love of God perrecTED. 
He that abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked, 
&c. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light [where the blood 
of Christ cleanseth from all sin] and there is none occasion of stumbling 
in him.” 

The same doctrine runs also through the next chapter: “ Every one 


that hath this hope in him, purrrreru wiMseLr as HE (Christ) 1s PURE. 


- Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, &c, and ye know 
that he was manifested to take away our sins, [1. e. to destroy them root 
and branch;] and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth 
‘ —" « 
-. 
* 


~ tion to “the things of God.” ‘ 


558 r LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


not : whosoever sinneth, does not [properly] see him, neither know him 
he that does righteousnbss i is righteous, even as he [Christ] i is righteous 
He that Committeth sin, [i. e. as appears by the context, he that trans 
gresseth the law,] is of the devil ; for the devil sinneth from the begin 
ning: for this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he 
destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God [ whosoever 
is made partaker of God’s holiness, according to the perfection of the 
Christian dispensation] doth not commit sin, [i. e. does not transgress 
the law ;] for his seed,” the ingrafted word, made quick and powerful by 
the indwelling Spirit, “remaineth in him, and [morally speaking] h 
cannot sin because he is [thus] born of God. For if ye know 
he is righteous, ye know that every one that doth righteousness 1 
born of him ;? ;” and that he that doth not righteousness,—he “ that com- 
mitteth sin,” or transgresseth the law,—is, so far, of the devil, for “ the 
devil” transgresseth the law, 1. e. “sinneth from the beginning. In his 
the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.* Who. 
soever does not righteousness, [i. e. whosoever sinneth, taking _ the wore 
in its evangelical meaning,] is not of God,” 1 John iii, 3-11 ; ii, 29. 
If Mr. Hill cry out, “ Shotking! Who are those men that do not sin? 
I reply, All those whom St. John speaks of, a few verses below: “ Be. 
loved, if our heart condemn us; [and it will condemn us if we sin, bu 
God much more, for] God is greater than our hearts, &c. Beloved, 
if our hearts condemn us not, we have confidence toward God, &c, 
cause we keep lus commandments, and do those things that are pleasing 
in his sight,” 1 John iii, 20, &c. Now, we apprehend, all the sophistry 
in the world will never prove that, evangelically speaking, “ cual 
God’s commandments,” and “doing what pleases him,” is sinnin 
Therefore, when St. John professed to keep God’s commandments, ani 
to do what is pleasing in his sight, he professed what our opponen 
call sinless perfection, and what we call Christian perfection. 4 
Mr. Hill is so very unhappy in his choice of St. John, to close the 
number of his apostolic witnesses for Christian imperfection, that, were 
it not for a few clauses of his first epistle, the anti-Solifidian severity o 
«that apostle might drive all imperfect Christians to despair. And wha 
is most remarkable, those few encouraging clauses are all conditional 
« Tf- any man sin,” for there is no necessity that he should; or rathe 
(according to the most literal sense of the word awaprn, which being it 
the Aorist has generally the force of a past tense,) “If any man Hs 
SINNED: if he have not sinned unto death: if we confess our sins: if 
that which ye have heard shall remain in yeu: if ye walk in the light 
then do we evangelically enjoy the benefit of our Adyocate’s interces 
Add to this, that the first of those clauses is prefaced by these we 
“ My little children, these things I write unto you, THAT YE SEN NO! 
and all together are guarded by these dreadful declarations :—* He the 
says, I ‘know him, and keepeth not his commandments, i is a liar. If any 
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. If anyr 
say, I love God, and loveth not his brother, [note : he that loveth 


* This doctrine of St. John is perfectly agreeable to that of our Lord 
that ‘‘ Judas had a devil,” because he gave place to the love of mone 
_ called Peter himself ‘‘ Satan,” when he ‘‘ savoured the things of men,’ [ 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 559 


hath fulfilled the law,] he is a liar. There is a sin unto death, I do not 
say that he shall pray for it. , Let no man deceive you; he that does 
righteousness is righteous. He that committeth sin [or transgresseth 
the law] is of the devil.” To represent St. John, therefore, as an enemy 
to the doctrine of Christian perfection, does not appear to us less absurd 
than to represent Satan as a friend to complete holiness. 


SECTION XI. 


Why the privileges of believers under the Gospel of Christ cannot be 
justly measured by the experience of believers under the law of Moses 
—A review of the passages unon which the enemies of Christian 
perfection found their hopes that Solomon, Isaiah, and Job, were 
strong imperfectionists. 


Ir Mr. Hill had quoted Solomon, instead of St. John; and Jewish, 
instead of Christian saints, he might have attacked the glorious Chris- 
tian liberty of God’s children with more success: for “the heir, as long 
as he is a child, [in Jewish nonage,] differeth nothing from a servant, 
_ but is under tutors [and school masters] until the time appointed by the 
| father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage: but when 
the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, 
made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, and 
stand in the Ipeonte| liberty, wherewith Christ has made us [Chris- 
tians] free,” Gal. iii, 1; iv, 1. But this very passage, which shows that ~ 
Jews are, comparatively speaking, in bondage, shows also that the 
Christian dispensation and its high privileges cannot be measured by the 
inferior privileges of the Jewish dispensation, under which Solomon 
lived: for the “law made nothing perfect,” in the Christian sense of the 
word. And “what the law could not do, God, sending his only Son, 
‘condemned sin in the flesh, that the mghteousness of the law might be 
fulfilled in us [Christian believers] who walk after the Spirit ;” being 
endued with that large measure of it, which began to be poured out on 
believers on the day of pentecost : for that measure of the Spirit was 
not given before, “because Jesus was not yet glorified,” John vii, 39. 
But after “he had ascended on high, and had obtained the gift of the in- 
dwelling Comforter” for believers; they received, says St. Peter, “ the 
end of their faith, even the Christian salvation of ‘their souls :” a salva- 
tion which St. Paul justly calls so great salvation, when he compares it 
with Jewish privileges, Heb. ii, 3. “Of which [Christian] salvation,” 
proceeds St. Peter, “the prophets have inquired, who prophesied of the 
grace that should come unto you [Christians,] searching what, or what 
“manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them [according to 

their dispensation] did signify, when it testified beforehand the suffer- 
ings of Christ, and the glory [the glorious dispensation] that should fol- 
ow [his return to heaven, and accompany the outpouring of the Spirit. ] 
Unto whom [the Jewish prophets] it was revealed, that not unto them- 
selves, but unto us [Christians] they did minister the things which are 
_ now preached unto you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,” 
Bere i, 9, &c. And, among those things, the Scriptures reckon theft 


his Works; vol. iv, p. 362.) Hence I conclude, that as the full mea. 


ae 


“Why was not the Holy Ghost given till Jesus Christ was glorified 


560 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


zoming of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, with power into the hearts of 
pelievers, and the baptism of fire, or the perfect love, which “ bur 
the chaff” of sin, “ thorough!y purges God’s floor,” and makes the he: 
of perfect believers “ a habitation of God through the Spirit, and x 
nest for indwelling sin.” As this doctrine rhay appear new to Mr. Hill 
I beg leave to confirm it by the testimony of two as eminent divines 4 
England has lately produced. The one is Mr. Baxter, who, in his com 
ment upon these words, “A testament is of force after men are dead,’ 
&c, Heb. ix, 17, very justly observes, that “ his (Christ’s) covenant has 
the nature of a testament, which supposeth the death of the testator, an 
is not of efficacy till then, to give fu fall right of what he bequeath 

Note : that the eminent, evangelical kingdom of the Mediator, in its 
full edition, called the kingdom of Christ and of heaven, distinct 
the obscure state of promise before Christ’s incarnation, began at Christ’ 
resurrection, ascension, and sending of the eminent gift of the Holy 
Ghost, and was but as an embryo before.” My other witness is the 
Rev. Mr. Whitefield, who proposes and answers the following question 


Because till then he was himself on the earth, and had not taken on him 
the kingly office, nor pleaded the merits of his death before his heave aly 
Father, by which he purchased that invaluable blessing for us.” (See 


sure of the Spirit, mene perfects Christian believers, was not given be 
fore our Lord’s ascension, it is as absurd to judge of Christian perfection 
by the experiences of those who died before that remarkable event, as 
to measure the powers of a sucking child by those of an embryo. _ 
This might suffice to unnerve all the arguments which our opponent 
produce from the Old Testament against Christian perfection. How 
ever, we are willing to consider a moment those passages by whie 
they plead for the necessary indwelling of sin, in all Christian beliey 
and defend the walls of the Jericho within, that aceursed city of refug 
for spiritual Canaanites and Diabolonians. y 
I. 1 Kings viii, 46, &c. Solomon prays and says, “If they 
Jews] sin against thee (for there is no man* that sinneth not) and 
be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they 
them away captive—yet, if they bethink themselves and repent, am 
make supplication unto thee, and return unto thee with all their hez 
and with all their soul, then hear thou their prayer.” No unpreju 
person, who, in reading this passage, takes the parenthesis (“ for ther 
is no man that sinneth not’) in connection with the context, can, I thinl 
help seeing that the Rev. Mr. Toplady, who, if I remember 
quotes this text against us, mistakes Solomon, as much as Mr. Hill d 
St. John. The meaning is evidently, there ts no man who is not 
to sin; and that a man actually sins, when he actually departs from 
Now, peccability, or a liableness to sin, is not indwelling sin ; for at 


* If Mr. Hill consult the original, he will find that the word translate’ 
is in the future tense, which is often used for an indefinite tense in 
mood, because the Hebrews have no such mood or tense. Therefo 
lators would only have done justice to the original, as well as to 
if they had rendered the whole clause, ‘‘ There is no man Same may 
instead ot’ ‘* There is no man that sinneth not.” 4 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 561 


there are some men who do not actually sin is indubitable, (1.) From 
the hypothetical phrase in the context, “if any man sin,” which shows 
that their sinning is not unavoidable. (2.) From God’s anger agains 
those that sin, which is immediately mentioned. Hence it appears, that 
so certain as God is not angry with all his people, some of them do not 
sin in the sense of the wise man. And, (3.) From Solomon’s intimating 
‘that these very men who have sinned, or have actually departed from 
God, may “ bethink themselves, repent and turn to God with all their 
heart, and with all their soul,” that is, may attain the perfection of their 
dispensation ; the two poles not being more opposed to each other than 
Sinning is to repenting ; and departing from God, to returning to him 
with all our heart and with all our soul. Take therefore the whole 
passage together, and you have a demonstration that “ where sin hath 
abounded, there grace may much more abound.” And what is this 
but a demonstration that our doctrine is not chimerical? For if Jews 
(Solomon himself being judge) instead of sinning and departing from 
God, can “repent, and turn to him with all their heart,” how much 
more Christians, whose privileges are so much greater ! 

__ Ii. “But Solomon says also, There is not a just man, upon earth, 
that does good and sinneth not,” Eccles. vii, 20. 

(1.) We are not sure that Solomon says it: for he may introduce 
here the very same man who, four verses before, says, “ Be not righteous 
overmuch,” &c, and Mr. Toplady may mistake the interlocutor’s mean- 
ing in one text, as Dr. Trap had done in the other. But, (2.) Sup- 
posing Solomon speaks, may not he in general assert what St. Paul 
does, Rom. iii, 23? <All have sinned, and come short of the glory of 
God,” the just not excepted: is not this the very sense which Canne, 
Calvinist a3 he was, gives to the wise man’s words, when he refers the 
reader to this assertion of the apostle? And did we ever speak against 
‘this true doctrine? (3.) If you take the original word to sin, in the 
lowest sense which it bears: if it mean in Eccles. vii, 20, what it does 
in Judges xx, 16, namely, fo miss a mark, we shall not differ; for we 
maintam, that, according to the standard of paradisiacal perfection, 
“there is not a just man upon earth, that does good and misses not” 
the mark of that perfection, i. e. that does not lessen the good he does, 
_ by some involuntary, and therefore (evangelically speaking) sinless de- 

fect. (4.) It is bold to pretend to overthrow the glorious liberty of 
God’s children, which is asserted in a hundred plain passages of the 
New Testament, by producing so vague a text as Eccles. vii, 20. And 
to measure the spiritual attainments of all believers, in all ages, by this 
obscure standard, appears to us as ridiculous as to affirm, that of a 
thousand believing men, nine hundred and ninety-nine are indubitably 
villains ; and that of a thousand Christian women, there is not one but 
is a strumpet; because Solomon says a few lines below, ‘One man 
among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I 
not found,” Eccles. vii, 28. 
If it be objected that “ Solomon asks, ‘ Who can say; Ihave made 
t clean, I am pure from my sin?” Prov. xx, 9 :” we answer :— 
Does not Solomon’s father ask, “ Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?” 
loes a question of that nature always imply an absurdity, or an impos- 
Vor. II. 36 


| Adam and Eve, were all liable to sin, in their sinless state. And that 


| 
| 
| 


over LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


sibility? Might not Solomon’s query be evangelically answered 
«The man in whom thy father David’s prayer is answered, pa in 
me a clean heart, O God; the man who has regarded St. James’ di 
tion to the primitive Solifidians, Cleanse your hearts, ye double mi 
the man who has obeyed God’s awful command, O Jerusalem, wash thy 
heart from iniquity, that thou mayest be saved: or the man who is ime 
terested jn the sixth beatitude, Blessed are the pure in heart, for 1 ey 
shall see God: that man, I say, can testify to the honour of the blood 
which cleanseth from all sin, that he has made his heart clean.” 

2. However, if Solomon, as is most probable, reproves in this passa 
the conceit of a perfect, boasting Pharisee, the answer is obvious: no 
man of that stamp can say with any truth, “ I have made my heart clean ;” 
for the law of faith excludes all proud boasting, and if we say, with the 
temper of the Pharisee, “that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, an¢ 
the truth is not in us ;” for we have pride, and Pharisaic pride too, witiel hy 
in the sight of God, is perhaps the greatest of allsins. If our opponents 
take the wise man’s question in either of the preceding Scriptural senses, 
they will find that it perfectly agrees with the doctrine of Jewish and 
Christian perfection. 

IV. Solomon’s pretended testimony against Christian perfection 
frequently backed by two of Isaiah’s sayings, considered apart from the 
context, one of which respects the “filthiness of our righteousness ;” 
and the other the wncleanness of our lips. I have already proved, (vol. i, 
Fourth Check, letter viii,) that the righteousness which Isaiah compare 
to filthy rags, and St. Paul to dung, is only the anti-evangelical, Pharisaic 
righteosuness of unhumbled professors: a righteousness this, which may 
be called “the righteousness of impenitent pride,” rather than “ the 
righteousness of humble faith ;” therefore the excellence of the right- 
eousness of faith cannot, with any propriety, be struck at by that passe ge 

V. “But Isaiah, undoubtedly speaking of himself, says, Wo is"%m 
for Iam undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, Isaiah yi, 5.” 

True: but give yourself the trouble to read the two following verses 
and you will hear him declare that the power of God’s Spirit applyit 
the blood of sprinkling (which power was represented by “a live co 
taken from off the altar,” ) touched his lips; so that “his iniquity w 
taken away and his sin purged.” This passage, therefore, when it 
considered with the context, instead of disproving the doctrine of Chri 
tian perfection, strongly proves the doctrine of Jewish perfection. _ 

If Isaiah is discharged from the service into which he is so unwa 
rantably pressed, our opponents will bring Job, whom the Lord hin 
pronounces perfect according to his dispensation, notwithstanding 
hard thoughts which his friends entertained of him. 

VL. Perfect Job is absurdly set upon demolishing Christian pe e 
because he says, “If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall con¢ 
me; if I say, [in a self-justifying spirit] I am perfect, it shall also p 
me perverse,” Job ix, 20. But, (1.) What does Job assert here 
than Solomon does in the word, to which Canne on this text j idi 
refers his readers: “Let another man praise thee, and not thine 
mouth ; a stranger, and not thine own lips.” Though even 
not without exception; witness the circumstance which droy 
to what he calls a confidence of boasting. (2.) That profe: 

. 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 563 


perfection of our dispensation in a self-abasing and Christ-exalting spirit 
is not a proof of perverseness, is evident from the profession which 
humble Paul made of his being one of the perfect Christians of his time, 
Phil. iii, 15, and from St. John’s declaration, that his “love was made 
perfect,” John iv, 17. For when we have “the witnessing Spirit, 
whereby we know the things gs which are freely given to us of God, we 
may, nay, at proper times we should acknowledge his gifts, to his glory,, ; 
though not our own. (3.) If God himself had pronounced Job perfect, 
according to his dispensation, Job’s modest fear of pronouncing himself “» 
‘so, does not at all overthrow the Divine testimony ; such a timorousness 
only shows that the more we are advanced in grace, the more we are 
averse to whatever has the appearance of ostentation; and the more 
deeply we feel what Job felt, when he said, “ Behold, I am vile; what 
shall I answer thee? I will put my hand upon my mouth,” Job xl, 4. 
Vil. «But Job himself, far from mentioning his perfection, says, 
Now mine eye seeth thee, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes, 
Job xlii, 6.” And does this disprove our doctrme? Do we not assert 
| that our perfection admits of a continual growth; and that perfect re- 
pentance, and perfect humility, are essential parts of it? These words 
of Job, therefore, far from overthrowing our doctrine, prove that the 
Patient man’s perfection grew ; and that from the top of the perfection 
of Gentilism, he saw the day of Christian perfection, and had a taste of 
what Mr. Wesley prays for, when he sings,— 


O let me gain perfection’s height, 
O let me into nothing fall, 


Confound, o’erpower me with thy grace; 
I would be by myself abhorr’d ; 

All might, all majesty, all praise, 
All glory be to Christ my Lord! 

_ VIN. With respect to the words, «The stars are not pure—the hea- 
yens are not clean in his sight: his angels he charged with folly,” Job 
‘xy, 15; vy, 18, we must consider them as a proof that absolute perfection 
Delongs to God alone ; a truth this, which we inculcate as well as our 
‘opponents. Beside, if such passages overthrow the doctrine of perfection, 

_ they would principally overthrow the doctrine of angelical perfection, 
which Mr. Hill holds as well as we. To conclude :— 
_ IX. When Job asks, « What is man that he should be clean? How 
| ean he be clean that is born of a woman? Who can bring a clean thing 
‘out of an unclean?” And when he answers, “ Not one ;” he means not 
| one who falls short of infinite power. If he excluded Emmanuel, God 
| with us, I would directly point at him who said, “I will, be thou clean ;” 
_ and at the believers who declare, “ We can do all things through Christ 
‘that strengtheneth us,” and accordingly «cleanse themselves from all 
| filthiness of the flesh and spirit, that they may be found of him without 
“spot and blameless.” Yea, I would point at the poor leper, who has 
faith enough to say, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make, me clean. ‘They 
Hl me that my leprosy must cleave to me till death batter down this 
ent of clay; but faith speaks a different language: only say the 
yord, Be thou clean, and I shall be cleansed: purge me with hyssop: 
inkle clean water upon me, and I shall be clean from all my filthiness._ ca 
If these remarks be just, does it not auptomihes it is as absurd to stab ~ 


\ parts ;”” and complains that the «Jews drew near to him with their lip 
- 


~» 
564 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


Christian perfection through the sides of Job, Isaiah, and Solomon, as 
to set Peter, Paul, James, and John, upon “ cutting it up, root and branch ?” 


SECTION XII. 


Containing a variety of arguments, to prove the absurdity of the twin 
doctrines of Christian imperfection and a death purgatory. 


I nave hitherto stood chiefly upon the defensive, by showing that Mr, 
Hill has no ground for insinuating that our Church, and Peter, Paul, 
James, and John, are defenders of the twin doctrines of Christian imper- 
fection and a.death purgatory: I shall now attack these doctrines by a 
variety of arguments, which, I hope, will recommend themselves to the 
candid reader’s conscience and reason. 

If I wanted to encounter Mr. Hill with a broken reed, and not with 
the weapons of a Protestant, Reason and Scriprurs, I would retort 

“here the grand argument by which he attempts to cut down our doc. 
trines of free agency and cordial obedience :— The generality of the 
carnal clergy are for you, therefore your doctrines are false.” If this 
argument be good, is not that which follows better still? “The gene. 
rality of bad men are for your doctrine of Christian imperfection ; 
therefore that doctrine is false : for if it were true, wickéd people would 
not so readily embrace it.” But as I see no solidity in that argument, 
by which I could disprove the very being of a God, (for the generality 
of wicked men believe there is a Supreme Being,) I discard it, and 
begin with one, which I hope is not unworthy the reader’s attention. 

I. Does not St. Paul insinuate that no soul goes to heaven without 
perfection, where he calls the blessed souls that wait for a happy resut 
rection, rvsuuara Oimoiwy terércimusvov, “the spirits of just men made 
perfect,” and not cereAcimmeva rvevuara dimouwy, the perfected spirits of 
just men? Hebrews xii, 23. Does not this mode of expression denote 
a perfection which they attained while they were men, and before they 
commenced separate spirits; that is, before death? Can any one go to 
a holy and just God, without first being made just and holy? Does not 
the apostle say, that “the unrighteous, or unjust, shall not imherit 
kingdom of God?” and that “without holiness no man shall see 
Lord?’ Must not this holiness, of whatsoever degree it is, be free fror 
every mixture of unrighteousness? If a man have at death the least 
degree of any unrighteousness and defiling mixture in his soul, must he 
not go to some purgatory, or to hell? Can he go to heayen, if « nothing 
that defileth shall enter the New Jerusalem?” And if at death his 
righteous disposition is free from every unrighteous and immoral mix. 
ture, is he not “a just man perfected on earth,” according to the dis 
pensation he is under ? 

II. If Christ takes away the outward pollution of believers, while he 
absolutely leaves their hearts full of indwelling sin in this life, why did 
he find fault with the Pharisees for cleansing the “ outside of the eu 
platter, while they left the inside full of all corruption?” If God 
“My son, give me thy heart ;” if he requires “truth in the 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 565 


when their hearts were far from him ;” is it not strange he should be 
willing that the hearts of his most peculiar people, the hearts of Chris- 
tians, should necessarily remain unclean during the term of life? Be- 
side, is there any other Gospel way of fully cleansing the lips and 
hands, but by thoroughly cleansing the heart? ' And is not a cleansing 
so far Pharisaical asit is heartless? Once more: if Christ has assured 
us that “blessed are the pure in heart,” and that “if the Son shall make 
us free, we shall be free’ indeed,” does it not behoove our opponents to 
prove that a believer has a pure heart, who is full of indwelling cor- 
Tuption ; and that a man is Sree indeed, who is still sold under inbred 
sin? 

II. When our Lord has bound the indwelling “man of sin, the strong 
man armed, can he not cast him out?” + Whenhe “cast out devils, and 
unclean spirits with a word,” did he call death to his assistance? Did 
he not radically perform the wonderful cure, to show his readiness and 
ability radically to cure those whose hearts are possessed by indwelling 
iniquity, that cursed sin, whose name is Ltecion? When the legion of 
expelled fiends “entered into the swine,” the poor brutes were delivered 
from their infernal guests by being “‘ choked in the sea.” Death there. 
fore cured them, not Christ. And can we have no cure but that of the , 
swine? No deliverance from indwelling sin, but in the arms of death . 
If this is the case, go, drown your plaguing corruptions in the first pond 
which you will meet with, O ye poor mourners, who are more weary of 
your life, because of indwelling sin, than Rebecca was because of the 
daughters of Heth. 

IV. How does the notion of sin necessarily dwelling in the hearts of 
the most advanced Christians agree with the full tenor of the new cove- 
nant, which runs thus? “TI will put my laws in their minds, and write 
them in their hearts. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus shall 
make them free from the law of sin and death.” If the law of perfect 
love to God and man be fully put into the heart of a believer, according 
to the full tenor of Christ’s Gospel, what room remains for the hellish 
statutes of Satan? Does not the Lord cleanse the believer’s heart, as 
he writes the law of love there? And when that law is wholly written 
by the Spirit, “ the finger of God,” which applies the all-cleansing blood, 
is not the heart wholly cleansed? When God completely gives “the 
heart of flesh,” does he not completely take away “the heart of stone ?” 
Is not the heart of stone the very rock in which the serpent, indwelling 
sin, lurks? And will God take away that cursed rock, and spare the 
yenomous viper that breeds in its clefts? 

VY. Cannot the “little leaven of sincerity and trith leaven the whole” 
heart? But can this be done without “purging out entirely the old 
leaven of malice and wickedness?” May not a father in Christ be as “free 
from sin,” as one who is totally given up to a reprobate mind is “ free 
from righteousness?” Is not the glorious liberty of God’s children the 
very reverse of the total and constant slavery to sin, in which the 
strongest sons of Belial live and die? If a full admittance of Satan’s 
temptation could radically destroy original righteousness in the hearts 
of our first parents, why cannot a full admittance of Christ’s Gospel 
radically destroy original unrighteousness in the hearts of believers? 
Does not the Gospel | promise us that “ w here sin has abounded, grace 


R,, 
am #*, 
» - 
566 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


shall niuch more abound?’ And did not sin so abound once as entire] 
to sweep away inward holiness before death? But how does grace 
abound much more than sin, if it never can entirely sweep mys inward 
sin without the help of death? 

VI. Is there not a present, cleansing power, as well as a preser 
atoning efficacy, in the Redeemer’s blood? Have we not already taken 
notice that the same passage of Scripture which informs us that “ if w 
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,” decid 
also, that, upon the same gracious terms, “he is* faithful and just & 
cleanse us from all unrighteousness?” Now, if the faithful and jus 
God is ready to forgive to-day a poor mourner who sincerely confesse 
his guilt; and if it would be doing Divine faithfulness and justice red 
dishonour to say that God will not forgive a Weeping penitent before the 
article of death; is it doing those Divine perfections honour to assert 
that God will not cleanse before death a believer, who humbly confesses 
and deeply laments the remains of sin? Why should not God display 
his faithfulness and justice in cleansing us now from inbred sin, as well 
as in forgiving us now our actual iniquities, if we now comply with the 
gracious terms, to the perfotmance of which this double blessing is 
annexed in the Gospel charter? 4 

VII. If our opponents allow that faith and love may be made perfee 
two or three minutes before death, they give up the point. Death is no 
longer absolutely necessary to the destruction of unbelief*and sin: 
if the “evil heart of unbelief departing from the living God” may h 
taken away, and the completely “ honest and good heart” given two ¢ 
three minutes before death, we desire to know why this change may not 
take place two or three fonts) two or three weeks, two or three yea 
before that awful moment ? 

VIII. It is, I think, allowed on all sides that “we are saved,” that 
sanctified as well as justified, “by faith.” Now, that particular heigh 
of sanctification, that full “circumcision of the heart,” which cent ally 
purifies the soul, springs from a peculiar degree of saving faith, and 
from a particular operation of the “Spirit of burning :” a quick opera 
tion this, which is compared to a baptism of fire, and proves sometimes 
so sharp and searching, that it is as much as a healthy, strong man 
do to bear up under it’ It seems, therefore, absurd to suppose that 
God’s infinite wisdom has tied this powerful operation to the article ¢ 
death, that is, to a time when people, through delirium or excessive 
weakness, are frequently unable to think, or to bear the feeble oe 
of a little wine and water. ms 

IX. When our Lord says, “ Make the tree good and its fruit good : a 
good man out of the good treasure “of his heart bringeth forth g 
things,” does he suppose that the hearts of his faithful people m 
always remain fraught with indwelling sin? Is indwelling sin a 000 
ireasure? Or does Christ any where plead for the necessary indwell 
of a bad treasure in a good man? When “the spouse is all F 
within ; when her eye is single, and her whole body full of light,” how 
can she still be full of darkness, and inbred iniquity? And when 
Paul observes that established Christians are “ full of goodness,” Rom 
xv, 14, who can think he means that they are full of heart corn 
and (what i is worse still) that they must continue so to their dying ay 


. 


. LAST ome TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


| _ . X. If Christian perfection be nothing but the depth of evangelical 
repentance, the full assurance of faith, and the pure love of God and 
man, shed abroad in a faithful believer’s heart by the Holy Ghost given 
unto him, to cleanse him, and to keep him clean “ from all the filthiness 
| of the flesh and spirit,” and to enable him to * fulfil the law of Christ,” 
| according to the talents he is entrusted with, and the circumstances in 
which he is placed in this world: if this, I say, is Christian perfection, 
nothing can be more absurd than to put off the attaining of it till we die - 
| and go to heaven. “This is evident from the descriptions of it which we 
find in the New Testament. The first is in our Lord’s account of the — 
beatitudes. For how can holy mourning be perfected in heaven, where 
there will be nothing but perfect joy? Will not the loving disposition 
of peace makers ripen too late for the Church, if it ripen only in heayen, 
where there will be no peace breakers ; or in the article of death, when 
people lose their senses, and are utterly disabled from acting a recon- 
ciler’s part? Ye that are “persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” will 
ye stay till ye are among the blessed, to “ rejoice in tribulation?” Will 
the blessed “ revile you, and say all manner of evil of you falsely,” to 
give you an opportunity of being “exceeding glad,” when you are 
counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s name? And ye, “ double-minded 
Christians, will ye tarry for the “ blessedness of the pure in heart,” till 
ye come to heaven ? Have you forgot that heaven is no purgatory, but 
a glorious reward for those who “ are pure in heart?” for those who 
have “ purified themselves even as God is pure ?” 

, XI. From the beatitudes our Lord passes to precepts descriptive of 
Christian perfection reduced to practice. “If thy brother hath aught 
against thee, go thy way, and be reconciled to him. Agree quickly 
with thine adversary. Resist not evil. Turn thy left cheek to him 
that smites thee on the mght. Give alms so as not to let thy left hand 
know what thy right hand does. ‘Fast evangelically. Lay not up trea- 
sures upon earth. Take no [anxious] thoughts what ye shalleat. Bless 


‘them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you, that ye may be 
the children of your Father, who is in heaven; for he maketh the sun 
to shine on the just and on the unjust. Be ye perfect as your Father 
who is in heaven is perfect.” - What attentive reader does not see that 
none of these branches of a Christian’s practical profession can grow in 
the article of death ; and that to suppose they can flourish in heaven, is 
| to suppose that Christ says, “ Be thus and thus perfect, when it will be 
impossible for you to be thus and thus perfect? Love your enemies, when 
* all will be your friends: do good to them that hate you, when all will 
flame with love toward you?) Turn your cheek to the smiters, when the 
cold hand of death will disable you to move a finger; or when God 
shall have fixed ‘a great gulf’ between the smiters and you ?” 
a _ XIl. The same observation holds with respect to that important 
branch of Christian perfection which we call perfect self denial. «If 
_ thine eye offend thee,” says our Lord, “pluck it out. If thy right hand 
‘offend thee, cut it off,’ &c. Now can any thing be more absurd than 
to put off the perfect performance of these severe duties till we die, and 
totally lose our power over our eyes and hands? Or, till we arrive at 
heaven, where nothing that offendeth can possibly be admitted ? 
XII. St. Luke gives us, in the Acts of the Apostles, a sketch of the 


of heart, praising God!” When I read this SC ie of the practical 


568 — LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


perfection of Christians living in community. The multitude of ther 

‘that believed,” says he, “ were of one heart andone soul. They continued 
steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine, and in prayer. They had all thi 
common: parting their possessions to all, as every man had need i 
neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed 
was his own: and continuing daily in the temple, and breaking bread 
from house to house, they ate their meat with gladness, and singleness 


perfection of a Christian Church, I am tempted to”smile at the mistake 
of our opponents, and to ask them, if we can “ eat our meat with glad- 
ness” in the article of death, or “sell our possessions” for the relief of 
our brethren upon earth, when we are gone to heaven? : 
XIV. Consider we some of St. Paul’s exhortations for the display of the 
perfection which we contend for, and we shall see in a still stronger light 
the absurdity that I point out. He says to the Romans, “ Present your 
bodies a living sacrifice; and be not conformed to this present world, that 
ye may prove what is that perfect will of God. Having different gifts,” 
use them all for God ; “ exhorting with diligence, giving with simplicity, 
showing merey with ‘cheerfulness, not slothful in business, fervent in- 
spirit, serving the Lord, communicating to the necessities of the saints, 
given to hospitality, weeping with them that weep, being of the same 
mind, condescending to men of low estate, providing things honest in the 
sight of all men, heaping coals of fire [coals of burning love and melt- 
ing kindness] on the head of your enemy, by giving him meat, if he be 
hungry ; or drink, if he be thirsty; overcoming thus evil with good.” 
Again: exhorting the Corinthians to Christian perfection, he says, 
« Brethren, the time is short. I would have you without carefulness, 
It remaineth that those who have wifes, be as though they had none; 3 
ee that weep, as if they wept not ; they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced 
; they that buy, as if they possessed not; and they that use 
ett) as not abusing it,” &c. -Once more : stirring up the Philippians 
to the perfection of humble love, he writes, “ Fulfil ye my joy, that ye 
think the same thing, have the same love ; being of one soul, of one 
mind. Do nothing through vain glory, but in lowliness of mind estee 
each the others better than themselves: Look not every one on his 
own things, but every one also on the things of others. Let this mind 
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who humbled himself, an 
became obedient unto death.” Now all these descriptions of the prae- 


For when we are dying, or dead, we cannot’ “ present our bodies 
living sacrifice ;”” we cannot “use this world as not abusing it ;? ” nor 
we “look at the things of others” as well as at our own. 

XV. The same thing may be said of St. Paul’s fine description « of 
Christian perfection under the name of charity. “Charity suffereth 
long ;” but at death all our sufferings are cut short. “Charity is not 
Nee it thinketh no evil: it covereth all things : it rejoiceth beet 


&e. "The bare reading of this description shows that it does not respect [ 
the article of death, when we cease to endure any thing; much less ¢ does 
it respect heaven, where we shall have absolutely nothing to endure. 


i] 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 569° 


XVI. If a pefect fulfilling of our relative duties be a most important 
part of Christian perfection, how ungenerous, how foolish is it to promise 
the simple that they shall be perfect Christians at death, or in heaven ? 
Does not this assertion include all the following absurdities ? Ye shall 
perfectly love your husbands and wives in the article of death, when 
you shall not be able to distinguish your husbands and wives from other 


_ men and women: or in heaven, where “ye shall be like the angels of _ 
_ God,” and have neither husbands nor wives. Ye shall assist your 


eee 


shall be past instructing or assisting them at all; when they shall be in 


parents, and instruct*your children with perfect tenderness, when 


heaven or in hell; past needing, or past admitting your assistance or 


instructions. Ye shall inspect your servants in perfect love, or serve 
' your master with perfect faithfulness, when the relations of master and 
_ servant will exist no more. Ye shall perfectly bear with the infirmities 


of your weak brethren, when ye shall leave all your weak brethren 
behind, and go where all your brethren will be free from every degree 
of trying weakness. Ye shall entertain strangers, attend the sick, and 


_ yisit the prisoners, with perfect love, when ye shall give up the ghost, or 
when ye shall be in paradise, where these duties have no more place 
_ than lazar houses, sick beds, prisons, &c. 


XVII. Death, far from introducing imperfect Christians into the state 


_ of Christian perfection, will take them out of the very possibility of ever 


attaining it. This will appear indubitable, if we remember that Chris- 
tian perfection consists in perfect repentance, perfect faith, perfect hope, 
perfect love of an invisible God, perfect charity for visible enemies, per- 


| fect patience in pain, and perfect resignation under losses ; in a constant 


bridling of our bodily appetites, in an assiduous keeping of our senses, 
in a cheerful taking up of our cross, in a resolute “ following of Christ 
without the camp,” and in a deliberate choice to “suffer affliction with 
the people of God, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a 
season.” Now so certain as there can be no perfect repentance in the 
grave; no Christian faith where all is sight ; no perfect hope where all 
Is enjoyment ; no perfect love of an invisible God, or of visible enemies, 
where God is visible, and enemies are invisible; no bearing pain with 
perfect patience when pain is no more; and suffering affliction with 
the people of God, where no shadow of affliction lights upon the people 
of God, &c. So certain, I say, as death incapacitates us for all these 
Christian duties, it incapacitates us also for every branch of Christian 
perfection. Mr. Hifl might then as well persuade the simple that they 
shall become perfect surgeons and perfect midwives, perfect masong 
and perfect gardeners in the grave, or beyond it, as persuade them that 
they shall become perfect penitents and perfect believers in the article 
of death, or in the New Jerusalem. ? 

XVIII. From the preceding argument it follows, that the graces of 
repentance, faith, hope, and Christian charity, or love for an invisible 
God, for trying friends, and for visible enemies, must be perfected here 
or never. If Mr. Hill grant that these graces are, or may be perfected 
here, he allows all that we contend for. And if he assert that they 
shall never be perfected, because there is “no perfection here,” and’ 
because the perfection of repentance, &c, can have no more place in 
heaven than sinning and mourning, I ask, What becomes then of the 


“570 LAST CHECK 10 ANTINOMIANISM 


_ it,” if you continue to obey. ‘The Lord will perfect that which con 


faithful that promised.” How can the Lord be faithful, and yet never 


“that no decay of the body,—no, not that complete decay which we cal 


scriptures which Mr. Hill is so ready to produée when he defends Ca 
vinian perseverance ! “ As for God, his work is perfect: being confident 
of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you (w 
have always obeyed, Phil. ii, 12) will perform, or emiredeos will perfec 


cemneth me. Praying exceedingly that we as workers together wit 
God might perfect that which is lacking in your faith, Looking unt 
Jesus, the author, and (s2Asimwrqv) the perfecter of our faith; for he 


perfect the repentance and faith of his obedient people? Will he 
such a blessed seed as that of faith, hope, and Jove to our enemies, a 
never let a grain of it either miscarry or bring forth fruit to perfection a 
Is not this a flat contradiction? How can a pregnant woman nev 
miscarry, and yet never bring forth the fruit of her womb to any pers 
fection? Such, however, is the inconsistency which Mr. Hill obtrudes 
upon us as Gospel. If his doctrine of Calvinian perseverance be true, 
no believer can miscarry ; no grain of true faith can fail of producing 
fruit to perfection: and if his doctrine of Christian perfection be true, 
no believer can be perfect ; no grain of faith, repentance, hope, and loy 
for our husbands and wives, can possibly grow to perfection. How 
different is this doctrine from that of our Lord, who, in the parable of 
the sower, represents all those who do not “bear fruit unto pone 
as miscarrying professors ! 
XIX. If impatience were that bodily disorder which is commonh 
called the heart burn; if, obstinacy were a crick in the neck; pride a 
imposthume in the breast; raging anger a fit of the toothache ; vanity 
the dropsy; disobedience a bodily lameness; uncharitableness th 
rheumatism, and despair a broken bone; there would be some sense if 
the doctrine of Christian imperfection, and reason could subscribe t€ 
Mr. Hill’s creed: for it is certain that death effectually cures the heat 
burn, a crick in the neck, the toothache, &c. But what real affinity 
have moral disorders with bodily death? And why do our opponent 
think we maintain a “shocking” doctrine, when we assert that death ha: 
no more power to cure our pride, than old age to remove our covetous 
ness? Nay, do we not see that the most decrepit old age does not cu 
men even of the grossest lusts of the carnal mind? When old drunkard: 
and fornicators are as unable to indulge their sensual appetites as if they 
actually ranked among corpses, do they not betray the same inclination’ 
which they showed when the strong tide of their youtuful blood joined 
with the rapid stream of their vicious habit? Is not this a demonstratiot 


death, has any necessary tendency to alter out moral habits? And 
not the ancients set their sedl to this observation? Does not Solomo 
say, that “in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be ?” 
has Mr. Hill forgotten those remarkable lines of vee 


Que cura nitentes 
Pascere equos, eadém sequitur tellure coolant 


“Disembodied souls have, in the world of spirits, the very | <n @ 
dispositions and propensities which they had when they dwelt i int 
body.” 


| 


| 


tf 
lf 


| 


' oa 
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 571 
é 


XX. If God hath appointed death to make an end of heart pollution, 
and to be our complete saviour from sin, our opponents might screen 
their doctrine of a death purgatory behind God’s appointment ; it, being 


| certain that God, who can command iron to swim, and fire to cool, 
_ could also command the filthy hands of death to cleanse the thoughts of 
| our hearts. . But we do not read in our Bible either that God ever gave 
_ to indwelling sin a lease of any believer’s heart for life; or that he ever 
_ appointed the king of terrors to deliver us from the deadly seeds of 


iniquity. And although the Old Testament contains an account of 


| many carnal ordinances adapted to the carnal disposition of the Jews, 
_we do not remember to have read there, “ Duaru shall circumcise thy 
heart, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. 
Death shall sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from 
all your filthiness death will cleanse you. Death will put my Spirit 


within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and (when you are 


dead) ye shall keep my judgments and do them.” And if death was 
| meyer so far honoured under the Mosaic dispensation, we ask where 
_he has been invested with higher privileges under the Gospel of Christ ? 
Is it where St. Paul says that “Christ hath abolished death, and hath 


brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel?’ It appears 
to us that it is a high degree of rashness in the Calvinists, and in the 


_ Romanists, to appoint the pangs of death, and the sorrows of hell, to do 


the most difficult, and, of consequence, the most glorious work of Christ’s 


| Spirit, which is powerfully to “ redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify 
-unto himself a peculiar people, [not full of all inbred unrighteousness, 


but ‘dead to sin, free from sin, pure in heart,’ and] zealous of good 
works.” And we shall think ourselves far more guilty of impertinence, 
if we nominate either death or hell to do the office of the-final purifier 
of our hearts, than if we ordered a sexton to do the office of the prime 
minister, or an executioner to act as the king’s physician. With 
respect to salvation from the root, as well as from the branches of sin, 
we will therefore “know nothing,” as absolutely necessary, “but Jesus 
Christ and him crucified,” risen again, ascended on high, that he might 
send the Holy Ghost to perfect us in love, through “a faith that purifies 
the heart, and through a hope which, if any man hath, he will purify 
himself, even as God is pure.” 

XXI. To conclude: if Christian perfection implies the perfect use 
of “the whole armour of God,” what can be more absurd than the 
thought that we shall be made perfect Christians in heaven or at death? 
How will Mr. Hill prove that we shall perfectly use the helmet of hope 
perfectly wield the shield of faith, and perfectly quench the fiery darts o 
the devil in heaven, where faith, hope, and the devil’s darts shall never 
enter? Or, how will he demonstrate that a soldier shall perfectly go 
through his exercise in the article of death, that is, in the very moment 


_ he leaves the army, and for ever puts off the harness? 


Mr, Baxter wrote, in the last century, a vindication of holiness, which 
he calls, “A Saint, or a Brute.” The title is bold; but all that can be 


_ said to defend iniquity cannot make me think it too strong, so many are 


the arguments by which the Scriptures recommend a holy life. And 1 
own to thee, reader, that when I consider all that can be said in defence 
of Christian perfection, and all the absurdities which clog the doctrine 


eal 


572 ss LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


of Christian imperfection, I am inclined to imitate Mr. Baxter’s posi ’ e 
ness, and to call this essay, A Perfect Christian in this World, or a Pé 
fect Dupe in the next. : 4 


SECTION XIII. 


Containing a variety of arguments to prove the mischievousness of th 
doctrines of Christian imperfection. 


Tue arguments of the preceding section are produced to show th 
apsurDITyY of Mr. Hill’s doctrine of Christian imperfection; those 
which follow are intended to prove the MiscHIEvoUsNEss of that modish 
tenet. 

I. It strikes at the doctrine of salvation by faith. “By grace are ye 
saved through faith,” not only from the guilt and outward acts of 
but also from its root and secret buds. “Not of* works,” says th 
apostle, “ lest any man should [Pharisaically] boast ;” and may we no 
add, Not of praru, lest he that had the power of death, that is, the devi 
should [absurdly] boast? Does not what strikes at the doctrine of faith, 
and abridges the salvation which we obtain by it, equally strike at 
Christ’s power and glory? Is it not the business of faith to receive 
Christ’s saving word, to apprehend the power of his sanctifying Spirit, 
and to inherit all the great promises by which he saves his penitent, be 
lieving people from their sins? Is it not evident that if no believers ¢é 
be saved from indwelling sin through faith, we must correct the apostle’ 
doctrine, and say, “ By grace are ye saved from the remains of sim, 
through death?” And can unprejudiced Protestants admit so Chris 
debasing, death-exalting a tenet, without giving a dangerous blow to 
genuine doctrines of the reformation ? 

II. It dishonours Christ as a Prophet: for, as such, he came to teach 
us to be now “meek and lowly in heart :” but the imperfect gospel of 
the day teaches that we must necessarily continue passionate and prow 
in heart till death; for pride and immoderate anger are, I apprehen¢ 
two main branches of indwelling sin. Again: my motto demonstrates 
that he publicly taught the multitudes the doctrine of perfection, an 
Mr. Hill insinuates that this doctrine is “shocking,” not to say “ blas 
phemous.” 

III. It disgraces Christ as the Captain of our salvation : for St. Pat 
says, that our Captain furnishes us with “ weapons mighty through Ge 
to the pulling down of Satan’s strong holds, and to the bringing of every 


* Here, and in some other places, St. Paul by ‘‘ works” means only th 
deeds of a Christless, anti-mediatorial law, and the obedience paid to the Se 

covenant, which is frequently called ‘‘the law,” in opposition to the Christ 
covenant, which is commonly called ‘“‘ the Gospel,” that is, the Gospel of Chris 
because Christ’s Gospel is the most excellent of all the Gospel dispensation: 
The apostle, therefore, by the expression, ‘‘ not of works,” does by no me 
exclude from “ final” salvation, the law of faith, and the works done in obedie: 
to that law: for, in the preceding verse, he secures the obedience of 
when he says, ‘‘ Ye are saved, [that is, made partakers of the blessing of 
Christian dispensation,] by grace through faith.’ Here then the word “by 
ce secures the first Gospel axiom, and the word “through faith” secures the 
secon ae 


| 


‘lage 


Py hs 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 573 


thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” But our opponents 
represent the devil’s strong hold as absolutely inpregnable. No weapons 
of our warfare can pull down Apollyon’s throne. Inbred sin shall main- 


tain its place in man’s heart till death strike the victorious blow. Christ — 


may indeed fight agaist the Jericho within, as “Joab fought against 
Rabbah of the children of Ammon :” but then he must send for death, as 
Joab sent for David, saying, “I have fought against Rabbah, and have 
taken the city of waters: now, therefore, gather the rest of the people 
together, encamp against the city, and take it, lest I take the city, and it 
be called after my name,” 2 Sam. xii, 27, 28. 

IV. It pours contempt upon him as the Surety of the new covenant, in 
which God has engaged himself to deliver obedient believers “from 
their enemies, that they may serve him without [tormenting] fear, all 
the days of their lives.” For how does he execute his office in this 
respect, if he never sees that such believers be delivered from their 
Mest oppressive and inveterate enemy, indwelling sin? Or ‘if that 


| deliverance take place only at death, how can they, in consequence of 


their death freedom, “serve God without fear ali the days of their 


lives 1” 

_ VY. It affronts Christ as a King, when it represents the believer’s 
heart, which is Christ’s spiritual throne, as being necessarily full of 
indwelling sin,—a spiritual rebel, who, notwithstanding the joint efforts 
of Christ and the believer, maintains his power against them both dur- 
ing the term of life. Again: does not a good king deliver his loyai 
subjects from oppression, and avenge them of a tyrannical adversary, 
when they cry to him in their distress? But does our Lord show himself 
such a king, if he never avenge them, nor turn the usurper, the murderer, 
sin, out of their breasts? Once more: if our deliverance from sin depend 
upon the stroke of death, and not upon a stroke of Christ’s grace, 
might we not call upon the king of terrors, as well as upon the King of 
saints, for deliverance from the remains of sin? But where is the 
difference between saying “O death, help us!” and crying, “O Baal, 
Save us?” ; 

_ VIL. It injures Christ as a Restorer of pure, spiritual worship in 
God’s spiritual temple, the heart of man. For it indirectly represents 
him as a Pharisaic Saviour, who made much ado about driving, with 
a whip, harmless sheep and oxen out of his Father’s material temple; 
but who gives full leave to Satan, not only to bring sheep and doves into 
the believer’s heart, but also to harbour and breed there during the term 
of life, the swelling toad, pride; and the hissing viper, envy; to say 
nothing of the greedy dog, avarice, and the filthy swine, impurity ; 
under pretence of “exercising the patience, and engaging the indus- 
try” ‘of the worshippers, if we may believe the Calvin of the day. 
(See the argument against Christian perfection at the end of this 


section.) ~ 


VII. [It insults Christ as a Priest ; for our Melchisedec shed his all- 
cleansing blood upon the cross, and now pours his all-availing prayer 
before the throne ; asking, that, upon evangelical terms, we may now 
be “cleansed from all unrighteousness, and perfected in one.” But if 
we assert that believers, let them be ever so faithful, can never be thus 
cleansed and perfected in one till death comes to the Saviour’s assistance, 


574 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


do we not place our Lord’s cleansing blood, and powerful ence 
and of consequence his priesthood, in an unscriptural at contemptibl 
light ? 

* Should Mr. Hill attempt to retort this argument by mat os «that i 
our doctrine, not his, which derogates fron the honour of Chris 
priesthood, because we should no longer need our High Priest’s bloog 
if we were cleansed from all sin” I reply : — ' 

(1.) Perfect Christians need as much the virtue of Christ’s blood 
prevent the guilt and pollution of sin from returning, as imperfect Chri 
tians want it to drive that guilt and pollution away. It is not enoug 
that the bloud of’ the true paschal Lamb has been sprinkled upon ow 
souls to keep off the destroyer; it must still remain there to hinder hi 
coming back “ with seven other spirits more wicked than himself.” (a. 
Mr. Hill is in the dark ; he calls for a light; and when it is brought, he 
observes, The darkness of the room is now totally removed. “Is it s¢ 
sir?’ replies his footman; “then you need these candles no more; if 
they have totally removed the darkness of your apartment, you hay 
no more need of them.” Mr. Hill smiles at the absurdity of his ser 
vant’s argument ; and yet it is well if he does not admire the wisdon 
of my opponent’s objection. (3.) The hearts of perfect Christians are 
cleansed, and kept clean by faith; and Christian perfection means thi 
perfection of Christian faith, whose property it is to endear Christ 4 
his blood more and more ; nothing then can be less reasonable haa 
say that, upon our principles, perfect believers have done with th 
atoning blood. (4.) Such believers continually “ overcome the ace 
of the brethren through the blood of the Lamb; there is no moment 
therefore, in which they can spare it: they are feeble believers w 
can yet dispense with its constant application ; and hence it is that the} 
continue feeble. None make so much use of Christ’s blood as perfee 
Christians. Once it was only their medicine, which they took now a 
then, when a fit of fear, or a pang of guilt, obliged them to it; 
now it is the Divine preservative, which keeps off the infection of sit 
Now it is the reviving cordial, which they take to prevent their “ gr 
ing weary, or faint in their minds.” Now it is their daily drink ; 
it is what they sprinkle their every thought, word, and work with, 
a word, it is that blood which constantly speaks before God and in the 
consciences “better things than the blood of Abel,” and actually pre 
cures for them all the blessings which they enjoy or expget. bea a5 
therefore, that the doctrine of Christian perfection supersedes the n 
of Christ’s blood, is not less absurd than to assert that the perfection 6 
navigation renders the great deep a useless reservoir of water. Lastly 
are not the saints before the throne perfectly sinless? . And who 
more ready than they to extol the blood and sing the song of the #amb 
“To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his hiaod i 
glory,” &c? If an angel preached to them the modern Go 
desired them to plead for the remains of sin, lest they should Jose th th he 
peculiar value for the atoning blood; would not they all suspect him 
be an angel of darkness, transforming himself into an angel nie 
And shall we be the dupes of the tempter, who deceives g 
that they may deceive us by a similar argument ? 

VIL. It discredits Christ as the Fulfiller of the Father’s ecu 


LSST CHECK TO ANTINOMZANISM. 575 


the Sender of the indwelling, abiding Comforter, in order that our 
joy may be full. For the Spirit never takes his constant abode as a 
Comforter in a heart full of indwelling sin. If he visit such a heart 
with his consolations, it is-only “as a guest that tarrieth but a day.” 
When he enters a soul fraught with inbred corruption, he rather acts asa 
Reprover than as a Comforter ; throwing down the tables of the spiritual 
money changers ; hindering the vessels, which are not holiness unto the 
Lord, from being carried through God’s spiritual temple, and expelling, 
according’ to the degree of our faith, whatsoever would make God’s 
house “a den of thieves.” 
| But, instead of this, Mr. Hiil’s doctrine considers the heart of a 
believer as a “den of lions ;” and represents Christ’s Spirit, not as the 
destroyer, but as the keeper of the wild beasts, and evil tempers which 
dwell therein. This I conclude from these words of the Rev. Mr. 
Toplady :—“ They,” indwelling sin and unholy tempers, “do not quite 
expire, till the renewed soul is taken up from earth to heaven. In the 
meantime these heated remains of depravity will, too often, like pri- 
soners in a dungeon, crawl toward the window, though in chains, and 
show themselves through the grate. Nay, Ido not know whether the 
Strivings of inherent corruption for mastery be not, frequently, more 
violent in a regenerate person, than even in one who is dead in tres- 
passes ; as wild beasts are sometimes the more rampant.and furious for 
‘being wounded.” (See Caveat against Unsound Doctrines, p. 65.) 
When ! read this Gospel, I cannot but throw in a Caveat against Mr. 
Toplady’s Caveat. For if his be not unsound, every body must allow 
it to be uncomfortable and unsafe. Who would not think it dreadfully 
dangerous to dwell with one wild beast that cannot be killed, unless we 
are first killed ourselves? But how much more dangerous is it to be 
condemned to dwell for life with a number of them which are not only 
immortal, so long as we are alive, but “are sometimes the more ram- 
pant and furious for being wounded!” The Saviour preached by Mr. 
Toplady only wounds the Egyptian dragon, the inward Pharaoh, and 
i es him rage, but our Jesus drowns him in the sea of his own blood, 
ly by stretching out the rod of his power, when we stretch out to 
‘him our arms of faith. Mr. Hill’s Redeemer only takes Agag prisoner, 
as double-minded Saul did; but our Redeemer “hews him in pieces” 
as upright Samuel. The Christ of the Calvinists says, .“ Confine the 
enemy; though he may possibly be fiercer than before.” But ,ours 
_ “thrusts out the enemy before us, and says, Destroy,” Deut. xxxiil, 27. 
_ 0, ye preachers of finished salvation, we leave it to your candour to 
‘decide which of these doctrines brings most glory to the saving name 
of Jesus. 
_ [®& The doctrine of our necessary continuance in indwelling sin to 
_ our last moments, makes us naturally overlook or despise the “ exceed- 
‘ing great and precious promises given unto us, that by these we might 
be partakers of the Divine nature,” that is, of God’s perfect holiness , 
“having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust,” 2 
Pet. i, 4; and thus it naturally defeats the full effect of evangelical 
truths and ministerial labours; an effect this, which is thus described by 
‘St. Paul; “teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present 
every man perfect in Christ Jesus,” that is, perfect according to the 


: 


576 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


richest dispensation of Divine grace, which is, “ the Gospel of Chri 

Jesus,” Col. i, 28. Again: “The Scripture is profitable for instructior 
in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly dur 
nished to all good works,” 2 Tim. iii, 16. Now we apprehend that the 
perfection which thoroughly furnishes believers unto all good works, i 
a perfection productive of all the “good works” evangelically as wel 
as providentially “ prepared that we should walk in them” before death 
because, (whatever Mr. Hill may insinuate to the contrary in England 


worm, or that a purgative fire will spare the rotten wood and cons me 

the vipers ! 
X. It defeats in part the end of the Gospel precepts, to the fulfill 

of which Gospel premiers are but means. “ All the law, the propheag 


shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour. a 
thyself,” through penitential faith im the light of thy dispensation ; tha 
is, in two words, thou shalt be evangelically perfect. Now, if wi 
believe that it is absolutely impossible to be thus perfect by keeping 
these two blessed commandments in faith, we cannot but believe als 
that God, who requires us to keep them, is defective in wisdom, equity 
and goodness, by requiring us to do what is absolutely impossible ; amt 
we represent our Church as a wicked step mother who betrays he 
children into the wanton commission of perjury, by requiring of ever 
one of them, in the sacrament of baptism, a most solemn yow, by whi p 
they bind themselves, in the presence of God and of the congregatior 
that “they will keep God’s holy will and commandments,” that is, tha 
they will keep God’s evangelical law, “and walk in ae same all th 
days of their life.” 
XI. It has a necessary tendency to unnerve our  aeees prayer 
How can we pray in faith that God would help us to “do his will | 
earth as it is done in heaven,” or that he would “ cleanse the tho ch 
of our hearts, that we may perfectly love him and worthily magnify hi 
holy name :” how can ae: I say, ask this in faith, if we disbelieve th 


& Teg to aise fervently for the Colossians in prayer, that th ¢ 
might stand perfect and complete in the will of God;” or St. Pa 1 t 
wish that “the very God of peace would sanctify the oie pnian 
wholly, and that their whole spirit, and soul, and body, pr, 2 pr 


article thereof? 
XII. It soothes lukewarm, unholy professors, saa encourages the 
to sit quietly under the vine of Sodom, and under their own faire 
tree: I mean under the baneful influence of their unbelief and ind 
ing sin; nothing being more pleasing to the carnal mind than this s 


bi 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 577 


song :—“It is absolutely impossible that the thoughts of your hearts 
should be cleansed in this life. God himself does not expect that you 
sHould be purified from all iniquity on this side the grave. It is proper 
that sin should dwell in your hearts by unbelief, to endear Christ to you, 
and so to work together for your good.” 'The preachers of mere 
morality insinuate that God does not forgive sins before death. This 
dangerous, uncomfortable doctrine damps the faith of penitents, who 
think it absurd to expect before death what they are taught they can 
only receive at death. And as it is with the pardon of sins, so it is also 
with “cleansing from all unrighteousness.” The preachers of Christian 
imperfection tell their hearers that nobody can be cleansed from heart 

sin before death. This new doctrine makes them secretly trust in a 

death purgatory, and hinders them from pleading in faith the promises 

of full sanctification before death stares them in the face ; while others, 

like spared Agag, madly venture upon the spear of the king of terrors 

with their hearts full of indwelling sm. The dead tell no tales now; 

but it will be well if, in the day of resurrection, those who plead for the 

necessary indwelling of sin during the term of life, do not meet in the 

great day with some deluded souls, who will give them no thanks for 
_ betraying them, to their last moments, into the hands of indwelling sin, 
_ by insinuating that there can be no deliverance from our evil tempers 
before we are ready to exchange a death bed for a coffin. 

XIII. It greatly discourages willing Israelites, and weakens the 
hands of the faithful spies who want to lead feeble believers on, and to 
_ take by force the kingdom which consists in righteousness, peace, and 
joy inthe Holy Ghost ; nothing being more proper to damp their ardour 
than such a speech as this :—“ You may strive against your corruptions 
_ and evil tempers as long as you please: but you shall never get rid of 
_ them; the Jericho within is impregnable: it is fenced up to heaven, 
_ and garrisoned by the tall, invincible, immortal sons of Anak : so strong 
_ are these adversaries, that the twelve apostles, with the help of Christ 
and the Holy Ghost, could never turn one of them out of his post. Nay, 
they so buffeted and overpowered St. Paul, the most zealous of the 
_ apostles, that they fairly took him prisoner, ‘sold him under sin,’ and 
‘made him groan to the last, ‘O wretched, carnal man that I am, who shall 
* deliver me from the law of my inbred corruptions, which brings me into 

captivity to the law of sin: I thank God through death. So then with 

the flesh,’ you must, as well as St. Paul, ‘ serve the law of sin’ till you die. 
_ Nor need you fret at these tidings; for they are the pure Gospel of 
_ Christ, the genuine doctrines of free grace and Christian liberty. In 
Christ you are free, but in yourselves you must continue to serve the 
_ Taw of sin: and indeed why should you not do it, since the sins of a 
_ Christian are for his good; and even the dung of a sheep of Christ is 
_ of some use, nay, of the most excellent use, if we believe Mr. Hill; for 
_ the most grievous falls—falls into repeated acts of adultery and delibe. 
) rate murder, serye to make us know our place, to drive us nearer te 

Christ, and to make us sing louder the praises of restoring grace.” 

Beside, that gentleman represents those who preach deliverance from 
_ indwelling sin before we go into a death purgatory, as “men of a 

Pharisaic cast; blind men, who never saw their own hearts; proud 
_ men, who oppose the righteousness of God; vain men, who aspire at 
| Vox. II. 37 


* 


578 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, © 


robbing Christ of the glory of being alone without sin: in short, ne 
who hold doctrines which are shocking, not to say blasphemous.” 
How would this speech damp our desires after salvation from indwell. 
ing sin! How would it make us hug the cursed chains of our inbre 
corruptions, if the cloven foot of the imperfect, unchaste Diana, wil b 
it holds out to public view without Gospel sandals, were not sufficient t 
shock us back from this impure gospel to the pure Gospel of Jesu: 
Christ! And yet (if I am not mistaken) this dangerous speech only 
unfolds the scope of Mr. Hill’s “« Creed for Perfectionists.” 
XIV. To conclude. The modish doctrine of Christian imperfection 
and death purgatory is so contrived, that carnal men will always prefe 
the purgatory of the Calvinists to that of the Papists. _ For the Papists 
prescribe I know not how many cups of Divine wrath and dire ven 
geance, which are to be drunk by the souls of the believers who die 
half purged, or three-parts cleansed. ‘These half-damned, or a quarter 
damned creatures, must go through a severe discipline, and fiery salva- 
tion, in the very suburbs of hell, before they can be perfectly puri ed 
But our opponents have found out a way to deliver half-hearted believe 
out of all fear in this respect. Such believers need not “ utterly abolis 
the body of sin” in this world. The inbred man of sin not only ma 
but he shall live as long as we do. You will possibly ask, “ What i 
to become of this sinful guest? Shall he take us to hell, or shall w 
take him to heaven? If he cannot die in this world, will Christ destro’ 
him in the next?” No: here Christ is almost left out of the question 
by those who pretend to be determined to “ know nothing but Christ ani 
him crucified.” Our indwelling adversary is not destroyed by th 
brightness of the Redeemer’s spiritual appearing, but by the gloom: 
ihe appearance of death. Thus they have found another Jesus 
another Saviour from sin. “The king of terrors comes to the assistan 
of Jesus’ sanctifying grace, and instantaneously delivers the carnal be 
liever from indwelling pride, unbelief, covetousness, peevishness, unc 
ritableness, love of the world, and inordinate affection. Thus th 
clammy sweats, brought on by the greedy monster, kill, it seems, th 
tree of sin, of which the blood of Christ could only kill the buds! T 
dying sinner’s breath does the capital work of the Spirit of holin 
And by the most astonishing of all miracles, the faint, infectious, last 
of a sinful believer blows away, in the twinkling of an eye, the gre 
mountain of inward corruption, which all the means of grace, all tl 
faith, prayers, and sacraments of twenty, perhaps of forty years, wi 
all the love in the heart of our Zerubbabel, all the blood in his vein 
all the power in his hands, and all the faithfulness in his breast, y pe 
never able to remove! If this doctrine be true, how greatly wa 
Paul mistaken when he said, “The sting of death is sin, &e. Th 
be to God, who giveth us the victory through Christ our Lord 
Should he not have said, Death is the cure of sin, instead of se 
“Sin is the sting of death?” And should not his praises flow 
“Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through DeaTH, our great 
and only deliverer from our greatest and fiercest enemy, indwelling sin?” 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 579 


SECTION XIV. 


An answer to the,arguments by which the imperfectionists support the 
doctrine of the necessary indwelling of sin in all believers till they go 
into the death purgatory. 


Tue pleasing effect of the light in a picture, is considerably height- 


_ ened by the bold opposition of strong shades: if the preceding argu- 


—_ - ES 
sel TT CT LTT LL LE LL SLO OS 


ments are the lights by which we hope agreeably to strike the mental 
eyes of the reader, who candidly considers the doctrine of Christian 
perfection, it will not be improper to heighten those lights by the 
amazing contrast of the arguments which our opponents advance in 
defence of indwelling sin and Christian imperfection. These arguments 
appear to us shades—hbold, logicai shades: but the bolder they are, the 
more they will set off the lustre of the truth which we recommend ; for, 


“if “all things work for good to them that love God,” why should not all 


the errors of others work for good to them that love the truth? I am 
abundantly furnished with the erroneous shades I want, by three of the 
most approved authors, who support the ark of the imperfect gospel— 
the Rey. Mr. Toplady, author of the “ Historic Proof of Calvinism ;” 
the Rey. Mr. Martin, author of several tracts which are esteemed by the 
Calvinists; and the Rev. Mr. Henry, famous for his voluminous Expo- 
sition of the Bible. 

The first of these authors, in his “ Caveat against Unsound Doctrine,” 
intimates that there never were on earth but three persons possessed of 
the sinless perfection which we contend for; Adam, Eve, and Jesus 
Christ: a bold intimation this, which, like the Babel I attack, has its 
foundation in confusion,—in the confusion of three perfections which 
are entirely different; the paradisiacal sinless perfection of our first 
parents ; the mediatorial, sinless perfection of Jesus Christ; and the 
Christian, evangelically sinless perfection of St. John. This intimation 
is supported by some passages from Solomon, which have been already 
considered in section xi, and by the following argument :— 

Arcument I. “A person of the amplest fortune cannot help the 
harbouring of snakes, toads, &c, on his lands; but they will breed, and 
nestle, and crawl about his estate, whether he will or no. All he can 
do is, to pursue and kill them, whenever they make their appearance. 
Yet, let him be ever so vigilant and diligent, there will always be a 
succession of those creatures, to exercise his patience and engage his 
industry. So it is with the true believer, in respect to indwelling sin.” 
(Caveat against Unsound Doctrines, page 54.) To this we answer :— 

1. From the clause which I produce in Italics in this argument, one 
would think that patience and industry cannot be properly exercised 
without indwelling sin ; if so, does it not follow that our Lord’s patience 
and industry always wanted proper exercise, because he was always 
perfectly free from indwelling sin? We are of a different sentiment 
with respect to our Lord’s Christian virtues ; and we apprehend that the 
patience and industry of the most perfect believer will always, without 
the opposition of indwelling sin, find full exercise in doing and suffering 
the whole will of God; in keeping the body under ; in striving against 


580 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


the sin of others; in testifying, by word and deed, that the works of 
world are evil; in resisting the numberless temptations of him, w 
“ goes about as ‘a roaring lion, seeking whom he may deyour ;” and i 
preparing to conflict with the king of terrors. * 

2. Why should not assiduous vigilance clear an éstate of snakes, as 
one of our kings cleared Great Britain of wolves? Did he not attempt 
and accomplish what appeared impossible to less resolute minds? Mr, 


Toplady is too well acquainted with the classics not to know what he 
. heathens themselves have said of industry and love ;— A 


Omnia vincit amor. Labor improbus omnia vincit: 


if “love and incessant labour overcome the greatest difficulties,” what 
cannot a diligent believer do, who is animated by the love of God, 
and feels that he “can do all things through Christ who strengthens 
him?” 

3. But the capital flaw of Mr. Toplady’s argument consists in so cor 
sidering the weakness of free will, as entirely to leave God and the 
sanctifying power of his Spirit out of the question. That gentleman 
forgets, that, “for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he 
might destroy the works of the devil.” Nor does he consider, that a 
worm, assisted by Omnipotence itself, is capable of the greatest achieve- 
ments. Of this we have an illustrious instance in Moses, with respect 
to the removal of the lice, the frogs, and the locusts. “ Moses entreated 
the Lord, and the Lord turned a mighty, strongswest wind, which too 
away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea; there remained no 
one locust in all the coasts of Egypt,” Exodus x, 19. If Mr. Toplad 
had not forgot the mighty God, with whom Moses and believers have to 
do, he would never have supposed that the comparison holds good 
between Curist “cleansing the thoughts and hearts of a praying 
believer by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit,” and a man, who can by 
no means destroy the snakes and toads that ‘breed, nestle, and craw 
about his estate. 

4. The reverend author of the “ Caveat” sinks in this argument evei 
below the doctrine of heathen moralists. For, suppose the extirpatiot 
of a vicious habit were considered, would not a heathen be mexcusable 
if he overlooked the succour and inspiration of the Almighty ? 
what shall we say of a Gospel minister, who, writing upon the destru 
tion of sin, entirely overlooks what at other times he calls the sovereign, 
matchless, all-conquering, irresistible power of Divine grace, which (i 
we believe him) is absolutely to do all iz us and for us; who insinuates 
that the toad pride, and the viper envy, must continue to nestle ¢ 
crawl in our breasts for want of ability to destroy them; and who 
cludes that the extirpation of sin is impossible, because we cannot bri 
it about by our own strength? Just as if the power of God, w 
“helps our infirmities,” did not deserve a thought! Who does not 
that when a divine argues in this manner, he puts his bushel upon 
light of Christ’s victorious grace, hides this sin-killing and heart-cl 
ing light, and then absurdly concludes that the darkness of sin m 
necessarily remain in all believers? Thus, if I mistake not, it appears, 
that Mr. Toplady’s argument, in favour of the death purgatory, is con- 
trary to history, experience, and Gentilism; and how much more to ~ 


Da 
* 


3 = 


. EAST CHECK TO ANTINONIANISH. 581 


Christianity, and to the honour of Him who < to the uttermost saves his 

z people from their” heart toads and bosom vipers, when they 
ee re 

‘The next author shall furnish me with logical shades, is the 
ingenious and Rey. Mr. who has just published a plea for the 
“Recessary i of sn m all believers. He calls it, “The Chris- 
ites ee 
5 f the arguments which follow :-— 

Axe. Ii. (15, &c.) <O ye vain boasters of mherent perfection, say, 
‘where is the man among you to be found, who always doth the ihings . 
that he would? If there be one who has this pre-eminence among his 
brethren, why should his name be concealed? Is he a preacher? and 

Se Rie Bases) al tics: that chocotery of the truth tw knee 

he could wish, &ec. Is he a private Christian? and will he venture 
| to declare that in every character he sustams, &c, he continually acts 
r not only the conscientious part, but in every respect fulfils the desire of 
- his mind?) What! does he hesitate? Is he afraid to attest this m the 2 

presence of a heart-searchmg God! How deceitful then is his con- 
 coag haga Strange mfatuation! If he cannot at all times do the 
. the good things that he would, can he suppose his best desires 
fe more extensive than that law which is exceeding broad? &c. If he 
be so vain as to suppose this, there is more hope of a fool than of 
who is so wise m his own conceit. If he disowns the inference, 
et aril that he is perfect, i. e. without sm, has 
| ceased fo commit miquity, what is the conclusion? I am obliged to 
conclude that perfection and imperfection, things as contrary to each 
other as light and darkness, are with such a deluded person considered 
as one and the same thing.” 

‘This argument, stript of its rhetorical ornaments, and put into a plam 
logical dress, rams thus :-— 

“ When Chnistians do not do all the good thmgs which they desire to 
} do, they sm, or break God's law, which is purer and broader than their 
| desires: but the best ministers, and the best private Christian, do not do 
| all the good things which they desire to do: and therefore the best 
ani and the best private Christians stn, and their sinless perfection 
. ith eitigty boast.” We may bring the argument into a std] narrower 
} compass, thus: “ All deficiencies are sinful, and therefore inconsistent 
with every kind of perfection.” Now this proposition, which is the basis 
Py of the whole arzument, has error for its foundation. Granting that 

_ deficiencies are inconsistent with the absolute will of God, and with the 
| perfection of his boundless power, I affirm four things, each of which, 
"Gf I mistake not, overturns our objector’s argument :— 

Ee 1. The separate “ spirits of just men made perfect” are perfectly 
| sinless : nevertheless, they “do not do all the good that they would ;” 

_ for they have not yet prevailed to get the blood of God's martyrs avenged: 
| a display of justice this, which they ardently wish for. And I prove it 
by these words of St. John :—«TI saw under the altar the souls of them 
that were slain for the word of God. and they cried with a loud voice, 
saymg, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge, and avenge 
_ our blood on them that dizell on the earth !” Rev. vi, 9._Had they done 
| | What they wished, i. e. actually prevailed with God, their prayer would 


- 
: 
- 


582 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 3 
have been immediately turned into praises, and persecutors would long 
ago have been rooted out from the earth. 

2. For want of infinite wisdom, does not perfect love in finite creatures 
frequently desire to do more for its object than it can ? hen “ Michael 
fought with the dragon,” is it not highly probablé that he lovingly desired 
to hinder his cruel adversary from doing any farther mischief? But did 
not his performance fall short of his pious, resigned desire? May not 
this be said also of the guardian care of the angels, who minister to the 
heirs of salvation? Do these loving spirits afford us all the help, or 
procure us all the bliss, which their tender compassion prompts them to _ 
wish us? If not, is it not absurd to suppose that, barely on this account, _ 
they are sinfully imperfect? Nay, would it not be a high degree of 
rashness and injustice to insinuate that they are transgressors of God’s 
spiritual law; and that his commandment, which is broader than their 
desires, is broken by their not dog us all the good which they desire to ~ 
do us, and which they would actually do us, if a wise Providence had not © 
set bounds to their commission? Does not this unscriptural, Calyinian 
legality put the stamp of sinfulness upon all angels and archangels, 
merely to keep in countenance the Antinomian doctrine of the necessary 
sinfulness of all believers? 

3. If we consider our Lord himself as a man, did he do all the good 
he would while he was upon earth? Did he preach as successfully as 
his perfect love made him desire to do? If he had all the success he 
desired in his ministry, why did he “ look round upon his hearers with 
anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts?” Why did he 
weep and complain, “ How often would I have gathered you, &c, and 
ye would not?” Were even his private instructions so much blessed to 
his own disciples as he could have wished? If they were, what meant 
these strange expostulations, “* How is it that ye have no faith? Faithless 
generation, how long shall I be with you? Hast thou been so long time 
with me, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me? Will ye also go 
away ?” 

Nay, had not Christ his innocent infirmities too? Did he not shudder 
at the prospect of the cup of trembling? Needed he not the “ strength. — 
ening support of an angel in the garden of Gethsemane?” Did he not — 
“ offer up prayers, with strong cryings and tears, unto Him that was 
able to save him from death? Was he not heard in that he feared?” 
Heb. v, 7. Did he not innocently cry out upon the cross, “ My God! 
my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” And does not the apostle 
observe, that “we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with — 
the feeling of our infirmities; but [one who] was in all points tempted — 
as we are, yet without sin?” Heb. iv, 15. When our opponents, theres 
fore, confound sin with natural, innocent infirmities, or with our not doing 
all the good we would, do they not inadvertently fix a blot upon the — 
immaculate character of Him who could say, “ Which of you convinceth 
me of sin?” é 

4, My pious opponent wishes, no doubt, to praise God as perfectly as _ 
an angel; while an angel probably desires to do it as completely as an 
archangel; but in the nature of things this cannot be. Thousands of 
God’s moral vessels, which are perfect in their place and degree, and ' 
as such adorn God’s universal temple, fall short of each other’s perfection 


, : a 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 583 


. 

without being sinfully imperfect on that account. When deficiencies 
are natural, and not moral, if we call them sin, m many cases we charge 
God with the creation of sin. Nor is it any more sin in a man not to 
magnify God so vigorously as an angel, or in an angel not to serve his 
Creator so perfectly as an archangel, than it is a sin in a good soldier 
not to do the king such excellent service as an experienced captain, or 
a consummate general. In the moral world, as well as in the natural, 
“one star may differ from another star im glory,” without the least 
disparagement to its peculiar perfection. The injudicious refinements 
of Calyism make a confused jumble of God’s works, as they do of 
God’s truth, and of the various perfections which belong to the various 
classes of his children: but a wise dispenser of the word will do by those 
yarious truths and perfections as Joseph did by his brothers : “ He placed 
them the first born according to his birthright, [or superiority,] and the 
youngest according to his youth” [or inferiority. ] 

5. We are not ashamed to assert that perfection in one respect, and 
imperfection in another respect, may consistently meet in the same 
subject ; or that men and things may be perfect in one sense and imper- 
fect in another. If our opponents ridicule us for it, we will preser 
them with an ocular, and by no means “ metaphysical” demonstration 
of their mistake. Two perfect grains, the one of barley, and the other 
of wheat, lie before us. I say with the perfectionists that the grain of 
barley is perfect in its kind, but imperfect, or inferior in excellence, when 
it is compared to the grain of wheat. But Mr. Martin, at the head of 
the imperfectionists, thinks me deluded, and placing himself in his 
judgment seat, gravely says, “ I am obliged to conclude that perfection 
and imperfection, things as contrary to each other as light and darkness, 
are with such a deluded person considered as one and the same.” 
« Some are so unaccountably absurd and ridiculous.” Reader, thou art 
judge and jury: pronounce which of the two deserves best this imputa- 
tion of “ unaccountable absurdity,”—the author of this Essay, or that of 
the “ Essay on Gal. v, 17.” 

6. With respect to ‘this gentleman’s triumphant question, “ Where is 
the (perfect) man? Why should his name be concealed?” I hope it 
has already been satisfactorily answered mm sec. iv, arg. xu. To what 
is advanced there, I add here the following remark :—Inveterate preju- 
dice is blmd. If it believe not reason, Moses, the prophets, and the 
apostles, “neither would it be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” 
And were we to point out a person as perfect as Jesus of Nazareth, and 
to say, “Behold the man!” I should not wonder if the prepossessed 
professors cried out, as some ancient engrossers of orthodoxy did, 
“ He is a deceiver of the people, teaching perfection throughout all 
Jewry.” And if they did not say, “ He is the friend of publicans and 
simmers, away with him!” it is not improbable they would say, “ He is 
a friend of the Pharisees and Arminians, why do you hear him? Would 
ye also be his disciples?” It is in vain to hope that prejudice expired 


with those who scoffed at perfection incarnate, and spit in the face of 
Jesus Christ, “thinkmg to do God and the Messiah service.” Man is 
man in London, as well as in Jerusalem. Our author goes on :— 
Are. III. Page 18. “It is not more essential to those who are par- 
takers of the grace of God in truth, to desire this, [the destruction of 


584 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. - 


sin,] than it is for every creature, as such, to desire an exemption from 
pain and shame.” Then follows a dangerous insinuation, that we must 
say by the cup of indwelling sin, as our Saviour did by the cup of pain 
and shame : “'The cup that my Father giveth me, shall I not drink of it?” 

Answer. Never was a cup of subtle poison more artfully mixed? 
And that the reader may not suspect any mischief, the author borrows 
the very cup which our heavenly Father presented to Christ in the 
garden of Gethsemane ; a cup of pain and shame. Reader, examine 
this cup, before thou drink it. Death is in it. Pour out the new wine, 
which makes the poison it contains palatable, and at the bottom thou 
wilt find this mortal sediment :—“It is as absurd absolutely to desire 
deliverance from sin in this life, as absolutely to desire deliverance from 
pain and shame.” To discover the falsehood of this proposition we 
need only weigh the following remarks :—(1.) Man mixed for himself 
the moral cup of sin, and God, to punish him, mixed the natural 
cup of pain and shame. (2.) It is excessively wrong so to confound 
moral and natural evil, as to say that, because we cannot with any pro- 
priety absolutely pray for deliverance from all natural evil in this 
life, we ought not absolutely to ask and expect deliverance from all 
moral evil before death. (3.) When the imperfectionists confound the 
moral cup of sin, with the natural cup of shame and pain, they are as” 
grossly mistaken, as if they confounded poison, and counter-poison ; sin, 
and its punishment; the murderer’s revengeful heart, and the gallows 
on which he is hanged. (4.) Shame and pain, when they are appointed 
for a trial of faith, and endured for righteousness’ sake, compose the 
last and greatest of all the beatitudes; a beatitude this, of which our 
J.ord drank so deeply, when, “for the joy that was set before him, he 
endured the pain, and despised the shame of the cross,” Heb. xii, 2. 
But where was indwelling sin ever ranked among the ingredients which — 
compose the beatitudes, that our opponents should thus confound it with 
pain and shame? (5.) When they insinuate that we must bear with 
sin as patiently as with pain and shame, the moral cup of indwelling 
iniquity as readily as the natural cup of outward affliction, do they not 
grossly confound “the cup of devils” with “the cup of the Lord,” and — 
make the simple believe that because we must patiently drink the latte 
with Christ, we must also patiently drink the former with Belial? The 
Captain of our salvation bids us “rejoice and be exceeding glad,” when — 
we patiently suffer pain and shame for righteousness’ sake ; therefore” 
absolutely to deprecate all pain and shame would be to pray ins' 
our “exceeding great joy ;” yea, against “our reigning with Christ :” 
for, only “if we suffer, shall we also reign with him.” But where does 
Christ bid us “rejoice and be exceeding glad” when we are full of 
indwelling sin? Or where does he promise that if we harbour indwell- 
ing sin, “we shall also reign with him?” Christians, awake! We 
pour out this rank poison before you, that you may advert to its offen. 
sive smell. While rash Solifidians gather it up, as if it were the honey 
of Canaan ; boldly trample it under foot, and be ye more and more per- — 
suaded that righteousness Calvinistically imputed, and indwelling sin, — 
are the two arms in which the Delilah of the imperfectionists clasps her — 
deluded admirers. M 

Page 31. Our ingenious author proposes an important question :—“Ift — 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 585 
> 


the grace of God,” says he, “be so abundant as the Scriptures repre- 
_ sent it, (and the Scripture cannot be broken,) why are believers per- 
| mitted to struggle so long for that victory they cannot yet obtain ?” 
that victory which death is to bring them? “ Whence is it that they, 
_ who pant for purity, should not immediately obtain a request so 
desirable?” For our author lays it down as an undoubted truth, that 
“flesh and spirit mutually lust, desire, and strive to obtain a complete 
_ conquest, but at present, [i. e. in this life,] neither can prevail.” (p. 26.) 
This important question we answer thus :—Imperfect Christians do 
not attain perfect purity of heart, (1.) Because they do not see the 
need of it; because they still hug some accursed thing, or because the 
burden of indwelling sin is not yet become intolerable to them. They 
| make shift to bear it yet, as they do the toothache, when they are still 
| loath to have a rotten tooth pulled out. (2.) If they are truly willing to 
be made clean, they do not yet believe that the Lord both can and will 
make them clean ; or that “ now is the day of this salvation.” And, as 
| faith inherits the promises of God, it is no wonder if their unbelief miss 
| this portion of their inheritance. (3.) If they have some faith in the 
_ promises that the Lord can and will “ circumcise their hearts, that they 
| may love him with all their hearts ;” yet it is not that kind or degree or 
faith which makes them completely willing to sell all, to deny themselves, 
faithfully to use their inferior talent, and to continue instant in prayer 
| for this very blessing. In short, “they have not, because they ask not,” 
which is the case of the Laodicean imperfectionists; or “because they 
ask amiss,” which is the case of the imperfect perfectionists. (4.) 
| Frequently also they will receive God’s blessing in their own precon- 
ceived method, and not in God’s appointed way. Hence God suspends 
the operation of his sanctifying Spirit, till they humbly confess their 
obstinacy and false wisdom, as well as their unbelief, and want of perfect 
love. Thus we clear our sanctifier, and take the shame of our impurity 
to ourselves. Not so our opponents. They exculpate themselves, and 
insinuate that God has appointed the necessary continuance of indwelling 
sin in us for life, that the conflict which we maintain with that enemy 
may answer excellent ends. Their arguments, collected in the above- 
quoted “ Essay,” are produced and answered in the following pages :— 
Arc. IV. Page 37, &c. “By this warfare the Lord manifests and 
magnifies himself to his people ; and, if I am not mistaken, &c, the 
continuance of it 1s a mean by which believers‘have such views of the 
perfections and glory of God, as it does not seem to us probable they 
could here obtam without it.” Then our author instances in God’s 
“unchanging love toward the elect,” and in his “sovereign grace, that 
reigns through righteousness to the salvation of the guilty.” He next 
observes that “those believers who are most conscious of this internal 
¢onflict ; most sensible of the power and prevalency of mdwelling sin, 
are most thankful that the endearing declarations of God’s distinguishing 
love are true.” And, pp. 39, 40, we are distinctly told that the doctrine 
of the necessary continuance of indwelling sin magnifies “the power 
and patience of God; the power of God to support us under this con- 
flict, and-his patience in bearing with our manifold weakness and ingra- 
titude.” For, great as the burden of our ingratitude is, “ vet he fainteth 
not, neither is he weary.” 


=< 


ON RS IER 


586 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


This is an extract of our author’s argument, which, like a snake, wor' 
its way through verbose windings, where I have not leisure to follow i 
Crush this snake, and out will come this less viper: “ The longer s 
continues in us, the more God’s sovereign love, grace, power, and pi 
tience, by which he saves guilty, weak, and ungrateful sinners, is 
fested unto us.” Or, if you please, “'The longer we continue i sin, ¢ 
the longer sin continues in us, the more is grace manifested and magni 
fied.” Ox, if you will speak as the apostolic controvertist, “Let u 
continue in sin that grace may abound.” A notion this, which is the, 
very soul of Antinomianism unmasked. q 

To fill the pious reader with a just detestation of this doctrine, I nee 
only unfold it thus : if the continuance of indwelling sin magnifies God’ 
sovereign grace and patience, in saving ungrateful sinners; the cor 
tinuance of outward sin will do this much more: for the greater our oul 
ward sins are, the greater will God’s patience appear in bearing with 
and his grace in forgiving us; seeing “he fainteth not, neither is h 
weary.” Thus we are come almost to the top of Antinomianism: an 
to reach the highest step of the fatal ladder, we need only declare, 4 
the author of the five letters has done, that “a grievous fall [into sit 
such as adultery, robbery, murder, and incest,] will make us sing loude 
to the praise of restoring grace throughout all the ages of eternity, 
(See the fourth of those letters. ) Now, if “a grievous fall” will infallibh 
have that happy effect, it follows that ten such falls will multiply te 

times the display of God’s power and patience. What a boundless fiel 
opens here, to run an Antinomian race, and to enlarge our wickednes 
as hell! What a ladder is here lent us to descend to the depth of th 
abomination of desolation, in order to reach the loudest notes of prais 
in heaven! If this Solifidian Gospel be not one of “ the depths of Satan, 
and the greatest too, | am not capable of discerning midnight gloom fro 
noon-day brightness. 

Arc. V. Page 4. “'To save the guilty in such a manner as, & 
effectually to humble them who are saved, displays thé manifold wisdon 
of God. Does it not seem necessary, to attain that great end, to mal 
believers experimentally ‘ know what an evil and bitter thing’ sin is, 
If sof when can the objects of salvation see this with becoming sh 
and sorrow? Not while they are ‘in the gall of bitterness,’ &c. Foi 
in that state, ‘so abominable is man, that he drinketh in iniquity lik 
water.’ On the other hand, this cannot be after they are broug 
glory : for then all the painful and shameful memorials of sin wi 
finally removed. It must be while flesh and spirit dwell in the s 
man.” = P ‘ 

Granted ; but what has this argument to do with the question ? 
we ever deny that, as long as we live, we must repent, or be de 
conscious “ what an evil and bitter thing” sin is? The question 
whether indwelling sin is the cause or source of true repentance, or a 
incentive to it; and whether God has appointed that this should remat 
in our hearts till death, lest we should forget “what an evil and bit 
thing sin is,” or lest we should not remember it “ with becoming shame 
and sorrow?” ‘The absurdity of this plea has already been exposed 
sec. ill, obj. vili, ix. And, to the arguments there advanced, I now 
those which follow: (1.) Does not experience convince impe 


 — 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISN. 587 


believers, that the more fretfulness, self will, and obstinacy they have in 
their hearts, the less they do repent? How absurd is it then to suppose 
that the remains of these evil dispositions will help them to feel “ be- 
coming shame and sorrow” for sin! (2.) Do not our opponents tell 
: hearers that we get more becoming shame and sorrow by looking 
aa moment “at Him whom we have pierced,” than by poring upon 
our corruptions for an hour? If so, why will they plead for indwelling 
, that “becoming shame and sorrow” may abound? And why do 
pretend that they exalt Christ more than we, who maintain that our 
‘most becoming shame and deepest sorrow flow from his ignominy and 
uferings, and not from our indwelling sin, and conflicting corruptions ! q 
not Job “abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes,” when he 
sa his redeeming God by faith, much more than when he es kept 
his head above the bitter waters "of impatience and murmuring? (3.) 
The pleaders for the continuance of indwelling sin tell us, “that as the 
sight and attacks of a living and roaring lion will make us dread lions 
more than all the descriptions and pictures which represent their 
destructive fierceness ; so the feeling the onsets of indwelling sin will 
make us abhor sin more than all the descriptions of its odious nature, 
the accounts of its fearful consequences : because a burnt child 
ony dreads the fire.” To this we answer :—A burnt child, who 
for the keeping of a burning coal upon his breast to make him 
the fire, has hitherto been burned to little purpose. Who had : 
= less to do with indwelling sin, and its cursed attacks, than the holy 
esus, and faithful angels? And yet, who is more filled with a perfect — 
abhorrence of all iniquity? On the otheg hand, who has been more 
distracted, and longer torn by indwelling sin, than the devil? And who, 
nevertheless, is better reconciled to it? Or, who is more plagued by 
the continual rendings and bitings of the lions and vipers within, than 
those passionate, revengeful people, who say, with all the positiveness 
tof Jonah and Absalom, “I do well to be angry, and revenge is sweet ?” 
Experience, therefore, demonstrates the inconclusiveness of this argu- 
ment. (4.) If the penitent thief properly learned, in a few hours, 
}“ what an evil and bitter thing external and internal sin is,” is it not 
te suppose that he must have continued forty years full of 
I welling sin to learn that lesson, if God had added forty years to 
3 life? Would this delay have been to the honour of his Divine 
eacher? Lastly: when Christ cast seven devils out of Mary Mag- 
me, did he leave one or two devils behind, to teach her “ becoming 
and sorrow” for sin? And was it these two ese “ Diabo- 


itential love which she felt for her gracious deliverer? Is it not 
tonishing that Gospel ministers should so far forget themselves and 
eir Saviour as to teach, as openly as for decency they dare, that 
we must fetch our tears of godly sorrow from the infernal lake, and 
indle the candle of repentance at the fire of hell! And that the 
breath of the Spirit, and the golden, hallowed snuffers of the 
‘sanctuary cannot make that candle burn continually clear, unless we 
to the end of our life, the black finger of Satan, indwelling sin ; and 
vere *s accursed extinguisher, original corruption ! 
|| Are. VI. Our author’s next argument, in favour of the necessary 


— 


988 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


indwelling of sin during life, is more decent, and consequently mor 
dangerous. The cloven feet of error delicately wear the sandals ¢ 
truth: but, with a little attention, we shall soon see that they are onl 
borrowed or stolen. The argument, abridged from page 44, and x 
dered more perspicuous, may run thus :—* If we have frequently bee 
slothful, and have not at all times exerted our abilities to the uttermos 
why may not God in wisdom rebuke us for it, and make us sensible a 
that evil, by not permitting us to effect what at other times we seer 
determined, if possible, to accomplish? [that is, by not permitting 
utterly to abolish the whole body of sin.] If Samson abuse his strength 
it is*fit he should have cause severely to repent of his folly, by bein 
deprived of it for a season, and becoming as weak as other men.” Her 
we are left to infer, that as Samson through his unfaithfulness becam 
“as weak as other men” for a season; so all believers, on account 
their unfaithfulness, must be weakened by indwelling sin, during th 
term of life. 
To this we answer, (1.) That although believers frequently give plae 
to sloth and unfaithfulness, yet they are no more necessitated to doit 
than Samson was to dally with Delilah. (2.) If the constant indwellin 
of sin be a just punishment for not making a proper use of the talent @ 
grace which God gives us, it evidently follows that owr unfaithfulnes 
and not a necessity appointed by God, is the very worm which destro y 
our evangelically sinless perfection: and the moment our opponent 
_ grant this, they allow all that we contend for; unless they should be abl 
to prove that God necessitates us to be unfait hful, in order to punish u 
infallibly with indwelling sin or life. , 
As for Samson, he is most unfortunately brought in to support th 
doctrine of the necessary indwelling of that weakening sin, which Ww 
call “inbred corruption :” and he might be most happily produced 
encourage those unfaithful believers, who, like him, have not made ™ 
proper use of their strengthin time-past. For he outlived his pens 
weakness, and recovered the strength of a perfect Nazarite before death 
witness his last achievement, which exceeded all his former exploi 
For it would be highly absurd to suppose that he got in a death purg: 
tory the amazing strength by which he pulled down the pillars th 
supported the large building where the Philistines feasted. Nor need 
the strength of a logical Samson to break the argumentative reeds whic 
support the temple of error, in which the imperfectionists make spor 
to their hurt, with the doctrine of that Christian Samson, who said, 
can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.’ 
Are. VII. Page 47, “é&e. We are indirectly told, (for pious men cat 
not utter gross Antinomianism without the mask of circumlocution,) th 
indwelling sin must continue in us, that “ grace [may] not only be exei 
cised, but distinguished from all that has only the appearance of it. B 
—how is the true grace of God to be here distinguished from that whie 
is but the semblance of it? By its effects—a clear and spiritual dise 
of the depravity, deceit, and desperate wickedness of our own hea 
And then we are given to understand that lest we should not be deep! 
convinced of that “ desperate wickedness,” the continuance of indwelling 
sin is absolutely necessary. This argument runs into the fifth, which T 


have already answered. It is another indirect plea for the continuance 
- 


° a 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 589 


of outward adultery and murder, as well as for the continuance of in- 
dwelling sin ; it being certain that outward adultery, &c, “ will convince 
us of the desperate wickedness of our hearts,” still more powerfully than 
heart adultery, &c. To what hard shifts are good men put, when they 
fight for the continuance of the bud, or root of any sin! Their every 
stroke for sin is a stab at the very vitals of godliness. * 

Are. VIII. Page 48. “The continuance of indwelling sin,” which is 
(with great modesty in the ingenious author, and therefore with great 
danger to the unwary reader) called “this warfare,” is supported by the 
following reason :—“It is often an occasion to discover the strength of 
grace received, as well as the truth of it.” This argument is all of a 
piece with the preceding, and puts me in mind of a speech, which a 
shameless young debauchee made once to me :—“I kept (said he) 
drinking and dosing in such a tavern, without ever going to bed, ever 
being sober one hour for twenty-three days. I never had so remarkable 
an occasion to discover the strength of my body, and the excellence of 
my constitution.” However, in a few months, while he continued in the 
conclusion to discover his strength, a mortal disorder seized upon him, 
and by removing him into eternity, taught me that if Fulsome, the pro- 
fessor, speaks the truth, when he says, Once in grace always in grace, 
Nabal, the sot, was mistaken, when he hinted, Once in health always in 
health. To make the imperfectionists ashamed of this argument, I hope 
I need only observe, (1.) That nothing ever showed more the strength 
of grace than the conflicts which the man Christ Jesus went through, » 
though he never conflicted a moment with indwelling sin. (2.) That 
the strength and excellence of a remedy is much better discovered by * 
the removal of the disorder which it is designed to cure, than by the 
| conflicts which the poor patient has with pain, till death comes to termi- 
jnate his misery. And, (3.) That the argument I refute, indirectly 
represents Christ as a physician, who keeps his patients upon the rack 
to render himself more necessary to them, and to show the strength of 
the anodyne mixture, by which he gives them, now and then, a little 
ease under their continued, racking pain! 

Our author adds, p. 49, “<If those who bear the heaviest burdeps are 
Sometimes esteemed the strongest men, they who are thus engaged in 
this warfare [I wish he would speak quite out, and say, They who bear 
the heaviest burden of indwelling sin,] have that evidence of the strength 
of grace, &c, which is peculiar to themselves.” A great mistake this: 
for if we may believe Ovid, when Medea murdered her own child, under 
a severe conflict with indwelling sin, she “had that fatal evidence of” 
what is here preposterously called the strength of grace ; but what I beg 

leave to call the obstinacy of free will. Sed trahit invitam nova vis, Fe. 
| “Passion,” said she, “hurries away my unwilling, reluctant mind.” 
: Judas, it seems, was not an utter stranger to this conflict, (any more than 

to the burden of guilt,) when he hurried out of it into a death purgatory. 
Nor do I blame him for having chosen strangling rather than life, if 
death can terminate the misery which accompanies indwelling sin, and 

do more in that respect for fallen believers than Christ himself ever did. 
But supposing that “the saving grace of God, which has appeared to all 
men,” never appeared to Medea’ and Judas; supposing these two sinful 
souls never conflicted with indwelling sin; it will, however, follow from 


. 


‘ministers ! 


590 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


our author’s insinuation, that, in case David had defiled half a doze 
married women, and killed ihe husbands, to enjoy them without a riva 
we should esteem him six times stronger in grace, if he had not faint 
under his sixfold burden, like Judas ; because “in this [Antinomian]) 
warfare, those who bear the heayiest burdens are esteemed the strong 
est” believers ; and because “they have that testimony of their love to. 
Christ which is peculiar to themselves.” If Satan were to transfor 
himself into an angel of light, could he preach a more dangerous at 
immoral gospel to an Antinomian and perverse generation ? 
Are. IX. Our author’s last argument in favour of the necessary con 

tinuance of sin in us, occurs page 51, and runs thus :—*I will only add 
that by this warfare the Lord weans his people from the present ey, 
world, and makes them long for the land of promise, as the land of res 
&c. I know some will say, This is impossible; and be ready to ask 
Are we then debtors to the flesh? [A very proper question! which t 
author answers thus:] By no means, &c. In our flesh dwells no goo 
thing, &c. Nevertheless—he [God] can and does make the preser ce 
of evil so irksome to the believer, that it makes him ardently long fe 
complete deliverance from it.” That is, in plain English, he keeps hi 
patients so long upon the rack of their indwelling sin, that at last they 
are forced to long for death, the great cleanser from heart iniquity. This 
argument would have been complete if it.had been supported by thes 
two passages :—“J do well to be angry even unto death:” «In thos 
days men, [plagued by the locusts which ascend out of the bottomles: 
pit,| shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.” To show it 
ee I need only make two or three remarks upon it :— 

1. Mark the inconsistency of our opponents. When they hear u 
press obedient faith upon a fallen or wavering believer, by mentio 
to him the terrors of the Lord, the fear of losing the Divine favour, ant 
the danger of being even “ spued out of Christ’s mouth, and condemnet 
without mercy” if he show no mercy; they say that enforcing the loyi 
of Christ on a disobedient believer, will abundantly answer all the goo 
ends which we propose by thus preaching Christ’s law: but, when the 
plead for the continuance of sin, they forget their own doctrine, and tel 
us that indwelling sin is necessary to keep us in the way of duty, namel 
in ardent longing for heaven. ‘They blame us for making use of Christ 
law, to spur believers: and yet they, (see to what astonishing heigh 
their partiality is grown!) they do not blush to preach openly the law of 
sin to believers ; insisting that its working in their members is necessar 
to “make them long for the land of promise, as for the land of resi 
and for the speedy possession of that great good which God has laid u 
for them.” (p. 52.) We are heretics for preaching the law of Christ 
the law of liberty ; they who preach the law of sin, the law of bon 
are orthodox, and engross to themselves the glorious title of Gq 


2. How absurd is it to prop up the throne of indwelling sin in the 
hearts of believers, that its tyrannical law may make them long for 
ven! Did not Christ long for heaven without indwelling sin? Do not' 
holiest believers, who are most free from indwelling sin, long most } 
ihe beatific vision? And do we not see that fallen believers, who are 
most filled with indwelling sin, are most apt to be lovers of sin and the 


. 


_ | 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 591 


_ vorld, “more than lovers of God” and heaven? Are they not the very 
people, who, unmindful of Lot’s wife, stay in the plain, instead of 
escaping for their life, and fleeing to the celestial mount of God without 
| ever looking behind them? 
| 3. Is not indwelling sin a clog, rather than a spur, to the heavenly 
) oe If sin be of such service’ to us, to make us run the career of 
| holy longing after heavenly rest, why does the apostle exhort us to “set 
aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us?” If we 
| want a spur to make us mend our pace, need we keep the spur, indwell- 
' ing sin? Is it not more likely to spur us to hell than to heaven? If we 
|, Rave thousands of sinless spurs, what need have we of keeping that to 
| drive us to heaven, which drove Adam behind the trees of the garden, 
not to say out of his native paradise ? 
|} If you ask, What are the sinless spurs of believers? We reply, all the 
} toils, infirmities, and pains of our weary, decaying, mortal bodies: all the 
troubles, disappointments, and sorrows, which arise as naturally out of 
‘our present circumstances, as sparks do out of the fire: a share of the 
| dreadful temptations which harassed Christ in the wilderness: and fre- 
| quent tastes of the pitter cup which made him sweat blood in the garden, 
and ery out on Calvary. Hear one, to whom our opponents absurdly 
} give the spur of indwelling sin, as if he had not spurring enough without 
it: “I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh,” 
} Col. i, 24. And surely indwelling sin was never one of Christ’s afflic- 
} tions. Again: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall 
‘it be tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, o1 
peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed ail the day 
‘long ; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Once more: some 
| were “tortured, not accepting deliverance ; and others had trials of 
cruel mockings, and scourgings; yea, moreover, of bonds and imprison- 
} ments. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, 
| were slam with the sword; they wandered about in sheep skins, and 
| goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented ; they wandered in deserts 
“and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” 
| I grant that all true believers have not these thorns in the flesh, and 
feel not the spurs which made Elijah flee for his life before incensed 
Jezebel, and “request that he might die under the juniper tree ;” but, at 
‘the best of times, they have, or should have David’s affliction, “ My eyes 
run down with water because men keep not thy law:” they have, or 
‘should have Jeremiah’s grief, «O that my head were waters, and mine 
eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep, day and night, for the deso- 
lation of Jerusalem, or for the slain of the daughter of God’s people !” 
ey have, or should have the sorrow of just Lot, who wasvexed “ from day 
to day with the filthy conversation of the wicked among whom he dwelt.” 
To suppgse, therefore, that in this vale of tears, tribulation, and sin, we 
need keep the sting of indwelling sin, because we must “strive against 
the sin” which is in the world to the end, even unio blood, if we are 
called to secure the crown of martyrdom; or, because it “is the will 
of God, that through much tribulation we should enter the kingdom ;” 
» (p- 46 ;) and because we should long for heaven: to suppose, I say, that 
"we must keep the sting, indwelling sin, on these accounts, is as absurd 
"as to suppose that all the keepers and nurses in bedlam must be mad, 


592 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, ‘ 


and must continue to be plagued with personal lunacy, lest they shoul 
not “strive against” madness to the end; lest they should not con 
of great disturbances when they remove from their dreary habite 
and lest, while they continue there, they should not see mad = 
enough to make them long for the conversation of reasonable persons 
Arce. X. Page 52. Our author loses his shrewd plea for the deatl 
purgatory by proposing a very material objection: “If any exclaim az 
say, These sentiments have a tendency to reconcile believers to sin; 
must say, The flesh might as soon be reconciled to the spirit, as th 
spirit to the flesh; or sin to grace, as grace to sin. It is often sai 
That nature will be nature. And why may not this be applied to t 
Divine nature, of which believers aré said to be partakers 1” Hence 
author insinuates that the Divine nature of believers is “immutable ; 
and that, because “to will is present with them,” when they sin they stil 
retain God’s holiness, .as “lions and eagles, however confined or caresset 
retain their ferocity and brutal appetites.” ° 
I am glad to see that this pious author has still the cause of hol ni 
at heart, and desires to stop up the Antinomian gap. I am persuad 
that he intends to do God service by pleading for the contiaeinell 
indwelling sin. If he ask for the reprieve of that robber and murdere 
it is merely because Antinomianism has deceived him, as formerly Ph 
risaism deceived the Jews, who cried, “ Release unto us Barab! 
he saw that Christ in us must be crucified afresh, im case the robber 
us is not put to death ; I doubt not he would be as sorry for his publica 
tion, as the devout Jews were for their antichristian request, when the 
“were pricked to the heart” on the day of pentecost. 
But, alas! if a+good intention excuse bad performances, it does no 
stop their mischief. The very desire which our author evidences tt f 
secure godliness, is so unfortunately expressed, that it gives her as fat 
a blow as the tempter did, when he said to our first parents, “ Ye she 
not surely die.” For, when that gentleman intimates to fallen believers 
Ye are possessed of the Divine nature ; and, be your works what the; 
will, if to will be “in some degree present, ” (p. 54,) ye are as muel 
possessed of God’s ee image, as a lion is possessed of a lion’s fier 
nature. What is this, but to preach the very gospel which the serpel 
' preached in paradise; with this difference, that the serpent said, “ 
shall not die: ye shall be as gods.” But the imperfectionists say, You! 
salvation is finished: ye have already the “immutable nature” of God 
ye are already as gods? Adam believed the tempter, and lost his hol 
nature. The imperfectionists believe our author: O! may none of then 
remain, “immutable” in the sinful imperfection which he so earnest 
contends for ! a 
XI. A Caveat. Having said so much upon our author’s misté 
should be inexcusable if 1 did not drop a caution about the rele 
which they are covered. His book goes into the world under the harm 
less title of “The Christian’s peculiar Conflict ;” whereas it should t 
called, A plea for the propriety and usefulness of the continuance 
indwelling sin in all Christians. 'This plain, artless title would b 
made true Christians stand upon their guard; but now they’ Pa me’ 
without suspicion the cup mixed by the author: and it is well if s¢ 
have not already drank it to the dregs without fear. 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 593 


the title of this essay is contrived. I write a treatise full upon the 
advantage of a standing rebellion in the kingdom, and urge a variety of 
plausible arguments to show the great good that will arise from an 
inveterate opposition to the government. “If a spirit of rebellion ceases 
in any subject, the king’s patience, mercy, love, and power will not be 
so fully displayed, nor will the loyalty of his good subjects be so well 
distinguished and proved: rebellion, and the burdens that attend it, will 
make us long for peace: guilty, ungrateful rebels will love the king and 
admire his mercy the more when they are forgiven after their manifold 
rebellions. And therefore [to tase unguarded words of our author, 

page 93,] wt becomes us seriously to consider how far this great end [ot 


: 
An illustration will give the reader an idea of the wisdom with which 


a spirit of rebellion continually dwelling in every Briton’s breast] 2s 
understood, approved, and answered.” I show my manuscript to a 
friend, who says, Your essay will alarm every well wisher to the con 
stitution of*the realm. But I remove his objection by saying, I will not 
cal] it “ An essay on the propriety and usefulness of a spirit ‘of rebellion 
constantly harboured in the breast of every one of his majesty’s sub- 
jects:” but I will call it, The loyal subject’s peculiar conflict, an essay 
on 1 Samuel xii, 19; and this plausible title will modestly make way for 
my boldest arguments. Pleas for the contmuance of rebellion and 
indwelling sin may properly enough be introduced by such a stratagem. 


SECTION XV. 


Mr. Hill objects, that the doctrine of Christian perfection is popish; and - 
the author shows that it is truly evangelical, and stands inseparably 
connected with the cordial obedience required by the mediatorial law 
of Moses and Christ, insomuch that there is absolutely no medium be- 
tween the doctrine of an evangelically sinless perfection and lawless 
Antinomianism—This section contains a recapitulation of the Scrip- 

__ ture proofs of the doctrine maintained in these sheets ; and therefore 

_ the careful perusal of it is humbly recommended to the reader. 


Havine taken my leave of the ingenious author of The Christian’s 
peculiar Conflict, | return to Mr. Hill, who by this time meets me with 
his “ Review” in his hand, and, with that theological sling, casts at our 
doctrine a stone which has indeed frighted thousands of weak souls, but 
has never done any execution among the judicious. Your doctrine, 
says he, “is a popish doctrine ;” and he might have added, with as 
much reason, that it is a Pelagian doctrine too: for, bold as Pelagius 
and some popes have been in coining new doctrines, they never came 
to such a pitch of boldness as to say that they were the authors of the 
doctrine of evangelical obedience, and of those commandments which 
bind us to love God,—our covenant God, with all our hearts, and our 
neighbours as ourselves: precious Gospel commandments these, upon 
which the doctrine of perfection securely rests! 

What pope was ever silly enough to pretend that he wrote the book 
of Deuteronomy, where we find this sweet, evangelical law, “ Fear, O 
Israel: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with 

Vox. Il. 38 


—_ 


594 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I comman¢ 
thee this day, shall be in thy heart,” [to do them, I suppose, and not t 
ridicule them under the names of perfection and popery?] Deut. vi, 5, 6 
Now, by what argument will Mr. Hill prove that the pope is the inyente 
of this blessed doctrine ? ; 

Should that gentleman reply, that when God gave his ancient people 
this gracious law of perfection, he did not give it with an intention tha 
they should personally keep it as an evangelical law; but only with an 
intention to drive them to the promised Messiah, who was to keep it fos 
them, and to give eternal indulgences to all the believers who break it; 
we demand a proof: and till Mr. Hill produce it, we show his mistake 
by the following arguments:—1. Although the Jewish dispensation 
revealed a “ gracious God, abundant in goodness, mercy, and truth, for. 
giving iniquity, transgression, and sin,” to returning sinners, who peni- 
tentially laid hold on his Jewish covenant ; yet, if I remember right, if 
never promised to accept of an obedience performed by another. Hence 
it is that God never commanded that Jewish females should be circum. 
cised, but confined his ordinance to the males, who alone could person 
ally obey it. We frequently read of vicarious sufferings in the Jewisl 
Gospel, but not of vicarious obedience and vicarious Jove. For although 
the obedience of godly parents engaged God to bestow many blessing 
upon their children, yet the children were to obey for themselves, or t 
be cut off in the end. The Jews were undone by a conceit of the con 
trary doctrine, and by wild notions about the obedience of Abraham 
and the holiness-of the temple, which they fancied was imputed to them 
in the Calvinian way: and a similar mistake, it is to be feared, stil 
undoes multitudes of Christians, who fatally mistake the nature of 
Christian obedience, absurdly put on robes of self-imputed righteous. 
ness, and rashly bespatter the robes of personal and evangelically pe 
fect obedience, which God requires of every one of us. 

2. The mistake I oppose would never have been made by our oppo 
nents, if they had not used themselves to tear the evangelically lega 
part of the Scriptures from the context, in order to give it a sense con 
trary to that of the sacred writers; it being certain, that, when ye 
have torn a man’s tongue out of his mouth, you may afterward force 
down his throat, and leave it there with the root against his teeth, an 
the tip toward his stomach. To show that the precept of perfect love 
which I have quoted from Deut. vi, is treated in this manner as often a 
our opponents insinuate God did not intend that Jewish believers shoul 
personally observe it as a term of final acceptance, but only that the 
should be driven thereby to the Mediator, who should perfectly loys 
God for them: to show, I say, the absurdity of this notion, we need onl 
do Moses the justice to hear him out. Let any unprejudiced person 
read the whole chapter, and he will, I am persuaded, side against the 
Calvinian imputation of a Jewish perfection to Jewish believers. Mose 
begins by saying, “ Now these are the commandments, which the Lord 
your God [yours, through an evangelical covenant] commanded to teach 
you, that ye might do them, [and not that your Médiator might do t 
for you,| Deut. vi, 1. Two verses after, he adds, “ Hear, O Israe 
observe and do, [not, Hear, O Israel, and another shall observe and do 
for thee,| that it may be well with thee.” Then comes our aan 


- 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 995 


_ doctrine and precept of perfect love, which, a few verses below, Moses 
- continues to enforce thus: “Ye shall not tempt the Lord your [cove- 
) nant] God. You shall diligently keep the [evangelical] commands of 
| the Lord your [covenant] God; and his [Gospel] testimonies, which he 
_ has commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good 
| in the sight of the Lord thy God, that it may be well with thee. And 
| when thy son asketh thee, saying, What do mean these statutes, [of per- 
_ fect love, &c,] then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s 
bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out.” And, lest Anti- 
nomian hands should draw the golden nail of this perfect obedience for 
_ want of proper clenching, this precious chapter, which our Church has 
properly selected for a Sunday lesson, ends with these words, which 
_ must raise a blush on the face, or strike conviction into the breast, of all 
| who trample under foot the robes of our own evangelical perfection: 
>And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, that he might 
_ preserve us’alive: and it shall be our righteousness [our Gospel perfec- 
tion] if we observe to do all these commandments, before the Lord our 
[covenant] God, as he has commanded us,” Deut. vi, 1-25. 
| If our opponents say that this is a transcript of Adam’s anti-media- 
torial law of paradisiacal perfection ; and not a copy of Moses’ media- 
torial law of Jewish perfection: or if they assert, that Moses Calvinis- 
tically hints that the Jews were to keep this law by proxy, they may 
say that light is darkness. And if they grant that Moses was no 
Antinomian shuffler, but really meant what he spoke and wrote, it 
unavoidably follows, (1.) That God really required of every Jew an 
| evangelical and personal perfection of love, according to the degree of 
light and power imparted under the Jewish dispensation. (2.) That 
| this evangelical, Jewish perfection of love was attainable by every sin: 
cere Jew; because, whatever God requires of us in a covenant of 
grace, he graciously engages himself to help us to perform, if we 
_believingly and obediently embrace his promised assistance. And, (3.) 
That if an evangelical perfection of love was attainable under the 
Jewish Gospel, (for “the Gospel was preached to the Jews as well as 
fo us,” although not so clearly, Heb. iv, 2,) it is absurd to deny that 
the Gospel of Christ requires less perfection, or makes less provision, 
' that Christians may attain what their dispensation calls them to. 

If Mr. Hill thinks that this inference is not just, I refer him to our 
Lord’s declaration: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law 
and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil:” first, by 

eeeetty obeying myself the two great moral precepts of Moses and 
| the prophets: and, neat, by teaching and helping all my faithful disci- 
fox to do the same, Matt. v, 17. Should that gentleman object to the 
{ 


| 


latter part of this little comment, because it leaves no room for the Cal- 
' vinian imputation of Christ’s mediatorial perfection to fallen believers, 
who sleep in impenitency, under the guilt of adultery, covered by mur- 
| der: we reply, that this part of our exposition, far from being forced. 
|is highly agreeable to the text, when it is taken in connection with the 
scope of our Lord’s sermon and with the context. For, 
(1.) All Christ’s sermons, and especially that upon the mount, incul- 
cate the doctrine of personal perfection, and not the doctrine of imputed 
/perfection. (2.) The very chapter out of which this text is taken, ends 


) 


\ 


: 


596 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


with these words: “ Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in hes 
ven is perfect.” And Mr. Hill, prejudiced as he is against our doctrin 
is too candid to assert that our Lord meant, “ Be ye therefore perfe 
as your heavenly Father is perfect: now, he is perfect only by the Ca 
vinian imputation of my righteousness: it is merely by imputation th 
he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good. And he sende 
only a Calvinistically imputed rain upon the just and upon the unjus 
Be ye therefore perfect only by the imputation of my perfect ser ul 
ness.’ 

Mr. Hill’s mistake has not only no countenance from the distant pa 
of the context, but it is flatly contrary to the words which immediatel 
follow the controverted text. ‘For verily I say unto you, [that, fa 
from being come to destroy the law and the prophets, that is, the spin 
uality and strictness of the moral part of the Jewish Gospel,] till hea 
ven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the 
law [which Pharisaic glosses have unnerved] till all be fulfilled.” 
lest you should think that I speak of your fulfilling this law by pros 
and imputation, I add, « Whosoever shall break one of these command 
ments, [which I am going to enforce upon you, as my own mediato 
law; though hitherto you have considered them only as Moses’ media 
torial law ; | whosoever, I say, shall break one of these least command 
ments, and [by precept and example] teach men so, he shall be calle 
the least in the kingdom of heaven; [if he have any place among m 
people in my spiritual kingdom, it shall be only among my carnal babes 
who are the least of my subjects.] But whosoever shall do and teae 
them, [the commandments whose spirituality I am going to assert,] th 
same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven,” [he shall be 
adult, perfect Christian in the kingdom of my grace here ; and he sha 
receive a proportionable crown of righteousness in the kingdom of my 
glory hereafter,] Matt. v, 18, 19. é 

If I am not mistaken, it evidently follows from these plain words ¢ 
Christ, (1.) That he taught a personal perfection, and an evangel 
cally sinless perfection too. (2.) That this perfection consists in m 
breaking, by wilful commission, the least of the commandments whic 
our Lord rescued both from the false glosses of Antinomian Pharisee 
who rested on the imputed righteousness of Abraham, saying, “ W 
have Abraham for our father: we are the children of Abraham: ¥ 
are perfect in Abraham: all our perfection is in Abraham:” and froi 
the no less false glosses of those absurdly legal Pharisees, who paid th 
tithe of anise, mint, and cummin, with the: greatest scrupulosity, whi 
they secretly neglected mercy, truth, and the love of God. And, (3. 
That the perfection which Christ enforced upon his disciples, was not 
merely of the negative kind, but of the positive also; since it consiste 
both in doing and teaching the least, as well as the greatest of Ge 
commandments. 4 

If you ask what are the greatest of these commandments, whiel 
Christ says his disciples must “do and teach,” if they will be great 
perfect in his kingdom and dispensation, St. Matthew answers, “ 
of the Pharisees, who was a lawyer, asked him a question, sa 
Master, which is the great commandment in the law, [the name th 
given to the Jewish Gospel which Moses preached;] Jesus said unts 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 597 


| him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
| thy soul, and with all thy mind : that is the first and great command. 
ment. And the second is like unto it [in nature and importance :] 
| Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments 
_ hang all the law and the prophets,” Matt. xxii, 35. That is, whatever 
Moses and the other prophets taught and promised, hangs on the nail 
of perfect love. All came from, all tended to perfect love under the 
_ Jewish dispensation: nor is my dispensation less holy and gracious. 
| On the contrary, “ What the law could not do,” in a manner sufhciently 
perfect for my dispensation, (for Jewish perfection is not the highest 
_ perfection at which man may arrive on earth,) “God sending me into 
the world for the atonement and destruction of sin, has hereby abundantly 
lev sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the mediatorial 


law,” which enjoins perfect love, “might be abundanily fulfilled in the 
hearts. of them that walk after the Spirit” of my Gospel: a brighter 
_ Gospel this, which transmits more direct and warmer beams from the 
Sun of righteousness, and can raise the exquisitely delicious fruit of 
perfect love to a greater perfection than the Gospel which Moses 
preached. (Compare Rom. viii, 3, with Heb. iv, 2. See also an 


sec. Vi. 

crite to this doctrine of perfection, our Lord said to the rich 
young man, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments; if 
thou wilt be perfect, follow me” in the way of my commandments. 
« Love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself; for bless- 
ed are they that do his commandments, that they may enter through 
the gates into the city, and have right to the tree of life which is in the 
street of that city, on either side of the pure river of the water of life. 
This do and thou shalt live” eternally in heaven. “Bring forth fruit 
unto perfection,” according to the talents of grace and power which 
thou art entrusted with, and thou shalt “inherit eternal life; thou shalt 
receive the reward of the inheritance ; thou shalt receive the crown of 
life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him,” with the love 
which keepeth the commandments, and fulfilleth the royal law. Com- 
pare Matt. xix, 17; Luke x, 28; Rev. xxii, 2, 14; James i, 12, and 
Luke viii, 14. . 

On these, and the above-mentioned scriptures, we rest the truth and 
importance of the doctrine of perfection. Jewish perfection principally 
stands or falls with Deut. vi, and Matt. xxii; and Christian perfection 
with Matt. vy, and xix, to which you may add the joint testimony of St. 

Pau] and St. James. The former, whom our opponents absurdly make 
“the captain of their imperfection, says to the Judaizing Galatians, 
| “Bear ye one another’s burdens, [a rare instance of perfect love !] and 
' so fulfil the ({mediatorial] law of Christ,” Gal. vi, 2. Nor let Mr. Hill 
Say that the apostle means we should fulfil it by proxy; for St. Paul 
| adds, in the next verse but one, “ Let every man prove his own work, 

and then [with respect to that work] he shall have rejoicing in himself 
| alone, and not in another, for [with regard to personal, evangelical 
obedience | every man shall bear his own burden :” a proverbial expres- 
sion, which answers to this Gospel axiom, Every man shall be. judged 
according to his own works. 


Er ET 


account of the superiority of Christ’s Gospel in the Scripture Scales, 


Te 
is 


+s 


598 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


St. Paul urges the same evangelical and lawful doctrine upon ¢h 
Romans :—* Love one another; for he that loveth another, hath fulfille 
the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit aduliery. Thou shalt 7 
covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly compre 
hended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself 
Love is the fulfilling of the law,” Rom. xiii, 8, &c. And that St. Paul 
spake this of the mediatorial law of liberty and Christian perfection, ant 
not of the Christless law of innocence and paradisiacal perfection, i 
evident from his calling it “the law of Christ,” that is, our Redeemer’, 
jaw, in opposition to our Creator’s law, which was given without al 
atoning sacrifice and a mediating priest, and therefore made no alloy 
ance for infirmities, and admitted neither of repentance nor of renovatet 
obedience. Beside, St. Paul was not such a novice as not to know tha 
the Galatians and the Romans, who had all sinned, as he observes, Rom 
iti, 23, could never be exhorted by any man in his senses, to fulfil the 
paradisiacal law of innocence, by now loying one another. He there: 
fore indubitably spake of the gracious law of our gentle Melchisedee 
the law of Him who said, “ A new commandment I give unto you, thal 
ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another, 
John xii, 34. A precious commandment this, which our Lord calls 
new, not because the Jewish mediator had not given it to the Israelite 
but because the Christian Mediator enforced it by mew motives, gayi 
new, unparalleled instances of obedience to it, annexed new rewards t 
the keeping of. it, and required it to be fulfilled with a new perfection 
And that Christians shall be eternally saved or damned, according té 
their keeping or breaking this mediatorial law of Christian perfectio 
this “law of Christ, this royal law of Jesus, the King of the Jews,” we 
prove by Matt. xvii, 35; vil, 26; xxv, 45; and Luke vi, 46, &c. 

If Mr. Hill’s prejudices are not removed by hat St. Paul says 
Rom. xiii, concerning our fulfilling the Gospel law of perfection, w 
entreat him to ponder the glorious testimony which the apostle, in Rom 
ii, bears to this law, which he does not scruple to call “his Gospel. 
With regard to this gracious rule of judgment, says he,** There is m 
respect of persons with God. For as many as haye sinned without ¢ 
[Mediator’s written] law, shail also perish with a [Mediator’s written 
law. And as many as have sinned in [or under a Mediator’s written 
law, shall be judged by the [Mediator’s written] law. For not the hearers 
of the [Mediator’s] “law are just before God, but the doers of the [Medi 
ator’s | law shall be justified. [Nor are the heathens totally destitute ol 
this law :] for when the Gentiles, which have not the [Mediator’s written] 
law, do by nature, [by natural conscience, which is the echo of the 
Mediator’s voice, and the reflection of the light which enlightens e 
man that cometh into the world,| when the Gentiles, I say, do [by these 
means] the things contained in the law, they, having not the law, are a 
Jaw unto themselves ; their conscience also bearing witness; and thei 
thoughts [in consequence of the witness borne] accusing, or else excusing 
one another; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by 
Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel,” [that is, according to the Gospel 
law which I preach, ] Rom. ii, 11, &c. For, while some “lay up trea. 
sures in heaven, others treasure up to themselves wrath against oa 
of wrath and of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every 


} oa 5 ., 
} Bz 
sf 
7 . 
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 599 


“man according to his deeds: to them who, by patient continuance m 
_ well doing, [or in keeping the Mediator’s law according to their dispen- 
| ‘sation,| seek for glory [he will render] eternal life, [like a righteous 
Judge, and gracious Rewarder of them that diligently seek him.] But 
_ unto them that do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [he will 
) render] indignation and wrath,” [in just proportion to the more or less 
| bmnght discoveries of the truth, which shall have been made to them, | 
| Rom. ii, 5, &c. “For that servant, who knew his Lord’s will, [by a 
. written law, delivered through the hands of a Mediator, | and prepared 
| not himself, [that he might have boldness in the day of judgment, | 
_ neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes [in 
| the hell of unbelieving Jews and disobedient Christians.] But he that 
knew not, [his Master’s will, by an outwardly written law,] and did 
| [break the law of nature, disobey the voice of his conscience, and] 
commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For 
| unto whomsoever much is, given, of him shall be much required,” _ 
Luke xii, 47, 48. An indubitable proof this, that as something is re- 
quired of all, something, even a talent of grace, a measure of the 
spiritual light which enlightens every man, is given to all to improve 
with, and bring ferth fruit to perfection; some thirty fold, some sixty 
fold, and others a hundred fold, according to their respective dispen- 
sations. 
From these quotations it appears to us indubitable, that the Gospel of 
St. Paul, and, of consequence, the Gospel of Christ, is not a wanton, 
lawless Gospel; but a holy, lawful Gospel, in which evangelical pro- 
mises are properly guarded by evangelical rules af jzdgment; and the 
doctrines of grace, wisely connected with the destrines of justice. If 
this be a glaring truth, what a dangerous game do many good men play, 
when they emasculate St. Paul’s Gospel, and with Antinomian rashness 
cut off, and cast away that morally legal part of it, which distinguishes 
it both from the ceremonial gospel which the Galatians foolishly em- 
braced, and from the lawless gospel which Solifidian gospellers contend 
for under the perverted name of “free grace!” And how seriously 
should we all consider these awful words of St. Paul !—*« There are 
some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ ; but 
though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto 
_ you [whether it be a more severe, Judaizing gospel, or a less strict, 
Solifidianizing gospel] than that which we have preached unto you, 
[which stands at an equal distance from burthensome, Jewish cere- 
monies, and from lawless, Solifidian tenets,] let him be accursed,” 
: mtxal: i, 7, 8. - 
This recapitulation of the principal Scripture proofs of our doctrine 
would be exceedingly deficient, if I did not once more remind the reader 
of the glorious testimony which St. James bears to the law of liberty :— 
“If ye [ believers, says he] fulfil the royal law, according to the serip- 
| / ture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well, [ye quit your- 
selves like perfect Christians.] But if ye have [uncharitably ] respect 
_ to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors, 
[that is, ye are condemned by the Mediator’s law, under which ye are.] 
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, [of the Mediator,] and yet 
_ {uncharitably] offend in one point, he is guilty of all, &c. So speak 
| 


_— 


600 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


ye, therefore, and so do, as people that shal. be judged by the la 
liberty [the Mediator’s law.] For he [the imperfect, uncharitable, falle 
believer] shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed n 
[charity or] mercy,” James ii, 8. 

We rest our doctrine of Jewish and Christian perfection on thes 
consentaneous testimonies of St. James and St. Paul; of Moses, the 
great lawgiver of the Jews, and of Christ, the great Lawgiver of the Chris 
tians: the doctrine of perfection, or of perfectly cordial obedience, being 
inseparably connected with the mediatorial laws of Moses and of Christ. 
The moment you destroy these laws, by turning them into “rule 
of life,” through the personal observance of which no believer shal 
ever be justified or condemned, yeu destroy the ground of Jewish an 
Christian perfection, and you impose upon us the lawless, unscriptural 
tenet of an obedience performed by proxy, and of an imputed perfection, 
which will do us as little good in life, death, and judgment, as impute 
health, opposed to inherent health, will.do to a poor, sickly, dying crin . 
nal. Thus, after leading my reader round a large circle of proofs, I 
return to the very point whence I started: (see the beginning of the pre. 
face :) and I conclude that a gospel without a mediatorial law, without 
an evangelical law, without the conditional promise of a crown of he - 
venly glory to the obedient, and without the conditional ges of 
infernal stripes to the disobedient ; ;—I conclude, I say, that such a gosp 
will always lead us to the centre of Antinomianism ; to the Diana an¢ 
Hecate of the Calvinists: to lawless free grace and everlasting free 
wrath ; or, if you please, finished salvation and finished damnation. On 
the other hand, the moment you admit what the Jewish and Christiar 
Gospel covenants are so express about, I mean an evangelical law, or 4 
practicable rule of judgment, as well as of conduct, eternal salvation an¢ 
eternal damnation become conditional: they are suspended upon the 
evangelical perfection or imperfection of our obedience; and the Rey. 
Mr. Berridge hits on the head of the golden nail, on which “ hang all 
the law and the prophets,” all the four Gospels and the epistles, when 
he says, “ Sincere obedience, as a condition, will lead you unavoidably uj 
to a perfect obedience.” 

And now, reader, choose which thou wilt follow, Mr. Hill’s lawless 
Antinomian Gospel, or St. Paul’s and St. James’ Gospel, ineluding th 
evangelical law of Christian liberty and perfection, by which law thou 1 
shalt be conditionally justified or condemned, “when God shall judge the 
secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to the Gospel,” Rom. ii, 16, 
If thou choose imputed righteousness and imputed perfection beeen: 
any condition, it will “ unavoidably” lead thee down into a death purge 
tory, through the chamber of indwelling sin, if thou art an elect person, 
in the Calvinian sense of the word; or to eternal damnation through 

. the chambers of necessary sin, if thou art one of those whom our oppo- 
nents call reprobates. But if thou cordially choose the sincere, voluntary, 
evangelical obedience of faith; which we preach both as a condition and 
as a privilege, it will (Mr. Hill’s second being judge) “unavoidably 
lead thee up to perfect obedience.” There is absolutely no medi 
between these two Gospels. Thou must either be a Crispian, lawl 
imperfectionist, or an evangelical, lawful perfectionist; unless thou 
choose to be a Gallio—one who cares for none of these things. Thou — 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 601 


must wrap thyself up in unscriptural notions of imputed righteousness, 
imputed holiness, and imputed obedience, which make up the ideal 
ent of Calvinistically imputed perfection; or thou must perfectly 
“ wash in the blood of the Lamb thy robes” of inherent, though derived 
righteousness, holiness, and obedience, which (when they are thus 
washed) are the rich wedding garment of evangelical perfection. 


SECTION XVI. 


The author shows that the distinction between sins, and (evangelically 
speaking) innocent infirmities, is truly Scriptural, and that judicious 
Calvinists and the Church of England hold it—He draws the line 
between sins and innocent infirmities—A view of the extremes into 
which rigid, Pelagian per fectionists, and rigid, Calvinian imperfection- 
ists, have run east and west, from the Gospel line of an evangelicai ~ 
perfection—An answer to Mr. Henry’s grand argument for the con. 
tinuance of indwelling sin—Conclusion of the argumentative part of 
this essay. 


We have proved, in the preceding section, that the doctrine of an 
eyangelically sinless perfection is truly Scriptural, being inseparably con- 
nected with the greatest and most excellent precepts of the Old and New 
Testament, and with the most evangelical and awful sanctions of Moses 
and Jesus Christ. This might suffice to show that our doctrine of per- 
fection cannot be called popish or Pelagian, with any more candour than 
the doctrine of the trinity can be branded with those epithets, because 
Pelagius and the pope embrace it. If, in order to be good Protestants, 
we were obliged to renounce all that the Jews, Turks, and infidels hold; 
we should renounce the Old Testament, because the Jews revere it ; we 
should renounce the unity of God, because the Mohammedans contend 
for it; nay, we should renounce common humanity, because all infidels 
approve of it. Ibeg leave, however, to dwell a moment longer upon 
Mr. Hill’s objection, that the pope holds our doctrine. 

When this gentleman was at Rome, he may remember that his 
Cicerone showed him, in the ancient Church of St. Poul without the gate, 
(if remember the name,) the picture of all the popes from St. Peter, 
Linus, Cletus, and Clement, down to the pope who then filled what is 
called “St. Peter’s chair.” According to this view of papacy, Mr. Hill 
is certainly in the right; for if he turn back to sec. v, he will see that 
Peter, the first pope, so called, was a complete perfectionist, and if 
Clemens, or St. Clement, Paul’s fellow labourer, was really the fourth 
pope, it is certain that he also held our doctrine as well as Peter and 
Christ; for he wrote to the Corinthians, “‘ By leve were all the elect 
of God made perfect. Those who were made perfect in love are in the 
region of the just, and shall appear in glory. Happy then are we if we 
fulfil the commandments of God in the unity of love. Following the 
commandments of God they sin not.” (St. Clem. Ep. to the Cor.) This 
glorious testimony, which St. Clement bears to the doctrine of perfection, 
might be supported by many correspondent quotations from the other 
fathers. But as this would too much swell this essay, I shall only pro- 


602 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


duce one, whichi is so much the more remarkable, as it is taken from s 
Jerome’s third Dialogue against Pelagius, the rigid, overdoing perfec 
ist: Hoc et nos dicimus, posse hominem non peccare, si velit, pro tempor 
pro loco, pro imbecillitate corporea, quamdiu intentus est animus, quamdi 
chorda nullo vitio laxatur in cithara. That is, “ We [who oppose Pela 
gius’ notion about Adamic perfection] maintain also that, considering 
our time, place, and bodily weakness, we can avoid sin if we will, a 
long as our mind is bent upon it, and the string of our harp [i. e. of ou 
Christian resolution] is not slackened by any wilful fault. 
When I read these blessed testimonies in favour of the truth which 
we vindicate, my pleased mind flies to Rome, and I am ready to say, 
Hail! ye holy popes and fathers, ye perfect servants of my perfect 
Lord! I am ambitious to share with you the names of “ Arminian, Pela. 
gian, Papist, temporary monster, and Atheist in masquerade.” I pubs 
lish to the world my steady resolution to follow you, and any of yout 
successors, who have done and taught Christ’s commandments. And 
enter my protest against the mistakes of the ministers who teach thal 
Christ’s Jaw is impracticable, that sin must dwell in our hearts as lon 
as we live, and that we must continue to break the Lord’s precepts ii 
our inward parts unto death. 
I shall close my answer to this argument of Mr. Hill by a quotatior 
from Mr. Wesley’s Remarks upon the Review :—“Tt [our doctrine ¢ 
Christian perfection] has been condemned by the pope and his whol 
conclave, even in this present century. In the famous bull Unigenitus 
they utterly condemn the uninterrupted act [of faith and love which som 
men talked of, of continually rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks] 2 
dreadful heresy.” If we have Peter and Clement on our side, we ai 
willing to let Mr. Hill screen his doctrine behind the pope who issue 
out the bull Unigenitus, and, if he pleases, behind the present pope too 
However, says Mr. Hill, “ The distinction between sins and innocen 
infirmities is derived from the Romish Church.” 
Answer. 1. We rejoice if the Church of Rome was never so unrea 
sonable and so deluded by Antinomian popes as to confound an involun 
tary, wandering thought, an undesigned mistake, and a lamented fit ol 
drowsiness at prayer, with adultery, murder, and incest; in order tf 
represent Christ’s mediatorial law as absolutely impracticable, and 
insinuate that fallen believers, who actually commit the above-mentione 
crimes, are God’s dear children, as well as the obedient believers wh 
labour under the above-described infirmities. , 
2. We apprehend that Mr. Hill and the divines who have espoused 
Dr. Crisp’s errors, are some of the last persons in the world by whoi 
we may with decency be charged to hold “ licentious” doctrines. 4 
we are truly sorry that any Protestants should make it their business to 
corrupt that part of the Gospel which, if we believe Mr. Hill, the Por De 
himself has modestly spared. 
3. Mr. Hill might, with much more propriety, have objected that 
distinction is Benned: from the Jewish Church ; for “ the old rogue,” 
some Solifidians have rashly called Moses, evidently made a distineti 
between sin and infirmities ; he punished a daring Sabbath breaker 
an audacious rebel with death, with present death, with the most ternible 
kind of death. The language of his burning zeal seemed to be that of 


‘ 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 603 


Dayid, “ Be not merciful to them that offend of malicious wickedness,” 
Psa. lix, 5. But upon such as accidentally contracted some involuntary 
pollution, he inflicted no other punishment than that of a separation from 
the congregation till evening. If Mr. Hill consider the difference of 
these two punishments, he must either give place to perverseness, or 
confess that wilful sins and involuntary infirmities were not Calvinistically 
confounded by the mediator of the old covenant ; and that Moses himself 
made a rational and evangelical distinction between “ the spot of God’s 
children,” and that “of the perverse and crooked generation,” Deut. 
XXX, 4. 

4, That Christ, the equitable and gracious Mediator of the new cove- 
nant, was not less merciful than stern Moses, with respect to the 
distinction we contend for, appears to us evident from his making a 


_ wide difference between the almost involuntary drowsiness of the eleven 


disciples in Gethsemane, and the malicious watchfulness of the traitor 
Judas. Concerning the offence of the former, he said, “The spirit 


_ indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak ;” and with respect to the crime 
of the latter, he declared, “It would be good for that man if he had 
never been born.” 


5. David and Paul exactly followed herein the doctrine of Moses and 


Christ. The psalmist says, “ Keep back thy servant also from pre- 


sumptuous sins: let them not have the dominion over me; then shall I 
be upright, [or rather, as the word literally means in the original, I shall 


_ be perfect,| and innocent from the great transgression,” Psalm xix, 13. 


Hence it is evident that some transgressions are incompatible with the 


_ perfection which David prayed for; and that some errors, or some secret 


[unnoticed, involuntary] faults, are not. 

6. This, we apprehend, is evident from his own words: “ Blessed is 
the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin, and in whose spirit there 
is no guile,” though there may be some improprieties in his words and 
actions, Psalm xxxul, 2. David’s meaning may be illustrated by the 
well-known case of Nathanael. Philip said unto him, “ We have found 
him of whom Moses wrote in the law: [a clear proof this, by the by, 
that the law frequently means the Jewish Gospel, which testifies of Christ 
to come :| it is Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathanael said unto him, Can 
any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Here was an involuntary fault, 
an improper quoting of a proverbial expression: and, nevertheless, as 
he quoted it with a good intention, and to make way for a commendable 
inquiry into the report which he heard, his error was consistent with 
that degree of perfection which implies “ innocence from the great 
[wilful] transgression.” This I prove, (1. ) By his conduct: « Philip 
saith unto him, Come and see ;” and he instantly went, without betraying 
the least degree of the self-conceited stiffness, surly pride, and morose 
resistance, which always accompany the unloving prejudice by which 
the law of Christ is broken. And, (2.) By our Lord’s testimony :— 
“Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an 
Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile!” Our Lord’s word for guile, 
in the original, is doAcg, the very word, which being also connected with 
a negative, forms the epithet odoAcs, whereby St. Peter denotes the 
unadulterated purity of God’s word, which he compares to sincere or 
perfectly pure milk, 1 Pet. ii, 2. Hence I conclude that, Christ himself 


604 LAST CHECK TO ANTLNUMLANISM. 


being witness, (evangelically speaking,) there was no more indwell 
insincerity in Nathanael than there is in the pure word of God; and t 
this is the happy case of all those who fully deserve the glorious title of 
“Israelite indeed,” which our Lord publicly bestowed upon Nathanael, 
To return :— 
7. If to make a distinction between sins and infirmities conte a 
man half a Papist, it is evident that St. Paul was not less tinctured with 
popery (so called) than David, Moses, and Jesus Christ: for he writes 
to Timothy, “Them that sin rebuke before all, that others may also 
fear,’ 1 Tim. v, 20. And yet he writes to the Romans, «“ We that are 
strong should bear with the infirmities of the weak,” Rom. xv, 1. Here 
are two plain commands ; the first, not to bear with sins ; and the second 
to bear with infirmities: a demonstration this, that there i is an essential 
difference between sins and infirmities, and that this difference is dis- 
coverable to others, and much more to ourselves. Nay, in most cases, 
it is so discernible to those who have their spiritual senses properly 
disposed, that they can as easily distinguish between sins (properly so 
called) and infirmities, as a wise judge can distinguish between accidental 
death and wilful murder ; or between unknowingly passing a false guinea 
with a kind intention to relieve the poor, and treasonably coining it wil 
a roguish design to defraud the public. The difference between the 
sun and the moon is not more striking in the natural world, than the 
difference between sins and infirmities in the moral world. Nevertheless, 
blind prejudice will probably confound them still, to darken counsel, a 
to raise a cloud of logical dust, that Antinomianism (the Diana of the 
imperfectionists) may make her escape, and save indwelling sin, which 
is the claw of the hellish lion, the tooth of the old dragon, the nee hook 
of Satan, and the deadly sting of the king of terrors. 
8. Judicious Calvinists have seen the propriety of the disiacten| for 
which we are represented as’ unsound Protestants. Of many whom I 
could mention, I shall only quote one, who for his piety, wisdom, and 
moderation, is an honour to Calvinism,—I mean the Rev. Mr. Newton, 
minister of Olney. In his Letters on Religious Subjects, p. 199, he 
makes this ingenuous confession :—“ The experience of past years has 
taught me [and I hope that, some day or other, it will also teach our 
other opponents] to distinguish between ignorance and disobedience, 
The Lord is gracious to the weakness of his people ; many involu 
mistakes will not interrupt their communion with him. He pities 
‘ infirmity, and teaches them to do better. But if they dispute his & 
will, and act against the dictates of conscience, they will surely suffer 
for it. Wilful sin sadly perplexes and retards our progress.” Here is, 
if I mistake not, a clear distinction made, by a true Protestant, betwee! 
disobedience or wilful sin, and weakness, involuntary mistakes, 
infirmity. 

. If Mr. Hill will not regard Mr. Newton’s authority, I beg he woul 
show some respect for the authority of our Church, and the import of 
his own prayers. If there be absolutely no difference between wilful 
sins, involuntary negligences, and unavoidable ignorances ; why does our 
Church distinguish them, when she directs us to pray in the liturgy, — 
“that it may please God to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and 
ignorances ?” Tf these three words have but one meaning, should not 


_ 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 605 


Mr. Hill leave out the two last as ridiculous tautology? Or, at least, to 
remove from our Church the suspicion of popery, should he not pray 


every Sunday that God would forgive us all our sins, sins, and sins! 


: 


_ From the nime preceding remarks, and the quotations made therein, 
it appears, if I mistake not, that our important distinction between wilful 
sin and infirmities, or involuntary offences, recommends itself to reason 
and conscience ; that it is supported by the law of Moses, and the Gos- 


pel of Christ ; by the Psalms of David, and the epistles of St. Paul; by 


the writings of judicious Calvinists, and the liturgy of our Church; and 


_ therefore it is as absurd to call it a popish distinction, because the Papists 


: 
] 
; 


_ are not injudicious enough to reject it, as it is absurd to call the doctrine 


of Christ’s divinity “a doctrine of devils,” because devils acknowledged 
him to be the Son of God, and their omnipotent Controller. 


_ Should Mr. Hill reply, that if this distinction cannot properly be called 


popish, it deserves to be called “ Antinomian,” and “ licentious ;” because 
it countenances all the men who give to their grossest sins the soft names 
of “innocent infirmities ;” we can answer: (1.) It has been proved that 
Moses and Jesus Christ held this distinction; and therefore to call it 
Antinomian and licentious, is to call not only Christ, the holy one of 
God, but even “legal” Moses, an Antinomian, and an advocate for 
licentiousness. See what these Calvinian refinements come to! (2.) 
The men who abuse the doctrine of the distinction between sns and 
infirmities, abuse as much the doctrine of God’s mercy, and the important 
distinction between working days and the Lord’s day: but is this a proof 
that the doctrines of God’s mercy, and the distinction between the Lord’s 
day and other days, are “licentious tenets, against which all that wish 
well to the interest of Protestantism should protest in a body ?” 

If Mr. Hill try to embarrass us by saying, “ Where will you draw the 
line between wilful sins and [evangelically speaking] innocent infirmities?” 
We reply, without the least degree of embarrassment, Where Moses and 
the prophets have drawn it in the Old Testament ; where Christ and the 
apostles have drawn it in the New; and where we draw it after them in 
these pages. nd, retorting the question to show its frivolousness, we 
ask, Where will Mr. Hill draw the lme between the free, evangelical 
observing of the Lord’s day, and the superstitious, Pharisaic keeping of 
the Sabbath ; or between weak, saving faith, and wilful unbelief? Nay, 
upon his principles, where wil! he draw it even between a good and a 
bad work ; if all our good works are really dung, dross, and filthy rags? 
_ However, as the question is important, | shall give it a more particular 
answer. An infirmity is a breach of Adam’s law of paradisiacal perfec- 
tion, which our covenant God does not require of us now: and (evan- 


_ gelically speaking) a sin for Christians is a breach of Christ’s evangelical 


law of Christian perfection ; a perfection this, which God requires of ali 
Christian believers. An infirmity (considering it with the error which 
it occasions) is consistent with pure love’to God and man: but a sin is 
Meconsistent with that love. An infirmity is free from guile, and has its 
foot in our animal frame: but a sin is attended with guile, and has its 
foot in our moral frame, springing either from the habitual corruption 
of our hearts, or from the momentary perversion of our tempers. An 
mfirmity unavoidably results from our unhappy circumstances, and from 
the necessary infelicities of our present state: but a sin flows from the 


606 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


avoidable and perverse choice of our own will. An infirmity has its 
foundation in an involuntary want of power: and a sin in a wilful abuse 
of the present light and power we have. ‘The one arises from invol 
tary ignorance and weakness, and is always attended with a good me 
ing ; a meaning unmixed with any bad design, or wicked prejudice : 
the other has its source in voluntary perverseness and presumption, an¢ 
is always attended with a meaning altogether bad; or, at best, with a 
good meaning, founded on wicked prejudices. If to this line the candid 
reader add the line which we have drawn (section vi) between the per- 
fection of a Gentile, that of a Jew, and that of a Christian, he will not 
easily mistake in passing a judgment between the wilful sins, which a 
inconsistent with an evangelically sinless perfection, and the innocent 
infirmities which are consistent with such a perfection. 
Confounding what God has divided, and dividing what the God of 
truth has joined, are the two capital stratagems of the god of error. The 
first he has chiefly used to eclipse or darken the doctrine of Christian 
perfection. By means of his instruments he has perpetually confounded 
the Christless law of perfect innocence, given to Adam before the fall; 
and the mediatorial, evangelical law of penitential faith, under which ov 
first parents were put, when God promised them the seed of the woman, 
the mild Lawgiver, the Prince of Peace, the gentle King of the Jews, 
who “breaks not the bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking flax,” 
compassionately tempers the doctrines of justice by the doctrines of 
grace ; and instead of the law of innocence, which he has kept and made 
honourable for us, has substituted his own evangelical law of repentanee, 
faith, and Gospel obedience, which law is actually kept, according ta 
one or another of its various editions, by all “just men, made perfect 7 
that is, by all the wise virgins, who are ready for the midnight ery, ant 
the marriage of the Lamb. 
Hence it appears that Pelagius and Avreistiie were both right in some 
things, and wrong in a capital point. Pelagius, the father of the rigi 
perfectionists and rigid free willers, asserted that Christ’s law could br 
kept, and that the keeping of that law was all the perfection which that 
.law requires. So far was Pelagius right; having reason, conscience, 
and Scripture on his side. But he was grossly mistaken if he confounded 
Christ’s mediatorial law with the law of paradisiacal perfection. Thi 
was his capital error, which led him to deny original sin, and to extol 
human powers so excessively as to intimate that by a faithful and diligent 
use of them, man may be as innocent, and as perfect as Adam was before 
the fall. ' 
On the other hand, Augustine, the father of the rigid imperfectionists 
and rigid bound willers, maintained that our natural powers, being greatly 
weakened and depraved by the fall, we cannot, by all the helps whieh 
the Gospel affords, keep the law of innocence ; that is, always thi 
speak, and act, with that exactness and propriety which became immo 
man, when God pronounced him very good in paradise : he asserted that 
every umpropriety of thought, language, or behaviour, is a breach of the 
law of perfection, under which God placed innocent man in the garden — 
of Eden; and he proved that every breach of this law is sin: and th 
of consequence there can be no Adamic, paradisiacal perfection in this — 
life. So far Augustine was very right: so far reason and Scripture 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 607 


his doctrine : and so far the Church is obliged to him for having 
| a stand against Pelagius. But he was very much mistaken when 
| Tabulished the essential difference which there is between our Creator’s 
law of strict justice, and our Redeemer’s mediatorial law of" justice, 
mpered with grace and mercy. MHence he concluded that there is 

y no keeping the law, and consequently no performing any 


| finue in the body. Thus, while Pelagins made adult Christians as 
werfecily siniess as Adam was in paradise, Augustine made them so 
_ completely sinful as to make it necessary for every one of them to go 
into a death purgatory, crying, “ There is a Jaw in my members, which 
4 me into captivity to the law of sin. Sin dwelleth in me. With 
‘flesh I serve the law of sin. I am carnal, sold under sin. O 
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?” 
__ The Scripture doctrine, which we vindicate, stands at an equal dis- 
_ tance from these extremes of Pelagius and Augustine. It rejects, with 
stine, the Adamic perfection which Pelagius absurdly pleaded for ; 
and it explodes, with Pelagius, the necessary continuance of indwelling 
Sim and carnal bondage, which Augustine no less absurdly maintained. 
‘Thus adult believers are still smners, still imperfect according to the 
Mighteous law of paradisiacal mnocence and perfection: and yet they 
“are really saints, and perfect according to the gracious law of evan- 
| gelical justification ar.d perfection: a law this, which considers as up- 
| right and perfect, all the godly heathens, Jews, and Christians, who are 
“without guile” in their respective folds, or under their various dispen- 
| sations.. Thus by still vindicating the various editions of Christ’s me- 
diatorial law, which has been at times almost buried under heaps of 
Pharisaic and Antinomian mistakes, we still defend practical religion. 
| And, as in the Scripture Scales, by proving the evangelical marriage of 
free grace and free will, we have reconciled Zelotes and Honestus with \ 
respect to faith and works; so in this essay, by proving the evangelical 
union of the doctrines of grace and justice in the mild and righteous 
| law of our Redeemer, we reconcile Augustine and Pelagius, and force 
| them to give up reason and Scripture, « or to renounce the monstrous 
| errors which keep them asunder: I mean the deep, Antinomian errors 
| of Augustine with respect to indwelling sin and a death purgatory ; and 
| the high-flown, Pharisaic errors of Pelagius, with regard to Adamic per- 
| fection, and a complete freedom from original degeneracy. 
| The method we have used to bring about this reconciliation is quite 
|} plain and uniform. We have kept our Scripture Scales even, and used 
} every weight of the sanctuary without prejudice ; ; especially those 
_ weights which the moralists throw aside as Calvinistic and Antinomian; 
| and those which the Solifidians cast away as Mosaic and legal. Thus, 
| by evenly balancing the two Gospel axioms, we have reunited the doc. 
| trines of grace and of justice, which heated Augustine and heated 
Pelagius have separated; and we have distinguished our Redeemer’s 
evangelical law, from our Creator’s paradisiacal law; two distinct laws 
these, which our illustrious antagonists have confounded; and we 
flatter ourselves that, by this artless mean, another step is taken toward 
bringing the two partial gospels of the day to the old standard of the 
one complete Gospel of Jesus Christ. 


608 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


I have done unfolding our reconciling plan: but the disciples of 
Augustine, rallied by Calvin, have not done attacking it. I hope 
I have answered the objections of Mr. Hill, Mr. Toplady, and Mi 
Martin, against the evangelical perfection which we defend ; but anothey 
noted divine of their persuasion comes up to their assistance. It is the 
Rey. Mr. Matthew Henry, who has deservedly got a great name among 
the Calvinists, by his valuable “ Exposition of the Bible,” in five foli 
volumes. This huge piece of ordnance carries a heavy ball, which 
threatens the very heart of our sinless Gospel. It is too late to attempt 
an abrupt and silent flight. Let then Mr. Henry fire away. If ow 
doctrine of an evangelically sinless perfection is founded upon a rock 
it will stand ; the ponderous ball, wnich seems likely to demolish it, wi 
rebound against the doctrine of indwelling sin; and the standard o} 
Christian liberty which we waive, will be more respected than ever. — 

“ Corruption,” saith that illustrious commentator, “is left remaining 
in the hearts of good Christians, that they may learn war, may kee 
on the whole armour of God, and stand continually upon their guard, 
“Thus corruption is driven out of the hearts of believers by litile ani 
litile. The work of sanctification is carried on gradually: but thai 
judgment will at length be brought forth into a complete victory? 
namely, when death shall come to the assistance of the atoning bloo¢ 
and of the Spirit’s power. That this is Mr. Henry’s doctrine, is evi 
dent from his comment on Gal. v, 17: “In a renewed man, whei 
there is something of a good principle, there is a struggle between, 4 
the remainders of sin, and the beginnings of grace; and this, Chris 
must expect, will be their exercise as long as they continue in 
world ;” or, to speak more intelligibly, tll they go into the death pur 
gatory. 

Not to mention here again, Gal. v, 17, &c, Mr. Henry builds 
uncomfortable doctrine upon the following text: “The Lord thy 
will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest 
not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon 
thee,” Deut. vii, 22. And he gives us to understand that “ pride an¢ 
security, and other sins,” are “the enemies more dangerous than the 
beasts of the field, that would be apt to increase” upon us, if God de 
livered us from indwelling sin, i. e. from the remains of pride and cap 
nal security, and other sins. This exposition is backed by an appeal t 
the following text :—“ Now these are the nations which the Lord left te 
prove Israel by them—to know whether they [the Israelites] woulé 
hearken to the commandments of the Lord,” Judges ii, 1, 4. (Se 
Mr. Henry’s exposition on these passages. ) d 

To this we answer:—1. That it is absurd to build the mighty doe. 
trine of a death purgatory upon a historical allusion. If such allusio 
were proofs, we could easily multiply our arguments. We could say 
that sin is to be utterly destroyed, because Moses says, “'The Lord de. 
livered into our hands Og and all his people, and we smote him un 
none was left unto him remaining,” Deut. iii, 3. Because “ Josh 
smote Horam, king of Gezer, and his people, until he had left him not 
remaining,” Deut. iii, 33. Because Saul was commanded “utterly to 
destroy the sinners, the Amalekites,” and lost his crown for spari 
their king: because, when God “overthrew Pharaoh and all his 


eC ._ 
’ 
4 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 609 


there remained not so much as one of them,” Exod. xiv, 28. Because, 
_ when God rained fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, “he overthrew all 
_ their [wicked] mhabitants ;” and because Moses says, “I took your sin, 
_ the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and 
_ ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust, and cast the , 
_ dust thereof into the brook,” Deut. ix, 21. But we should blush to 
_ build the doctrine of Christian perfection upon so absurd and slender 
_afoundation. And yet such a foundation would be far more solid, than 
that on which Mr. Henry builds the doctrine of Christian imperfection, 
and of the necessary indwelling of sin in the most holy believers ; for, 
_ 2. Before God permitted the Canaanites to remain in the land, he 
had said, “« When ye are passed over Jordan, then ye shall drive out ail 
the inhabitants of the land before you, and destroy all their pictures ; 
for I have given you the land to possess it. But if ye will not drive 
out the inhabitants of the land before you, then it shall come to pass, 
that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, 
thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein you 
} 


dwell. And moreover I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them,” 
Num. xxxiii, 51, &c. Hence it appears, that the sparing of the Ca- 
Maanites was a punishment inflicted upon the Israelites, as well as a 
favour shown to the Canaanites, some of whom, like Rahab and the 
Gibeonites, probably turned to the Lord, and as “God’s creatures,” 
enjoyed his saving mercy in the land of promise. But is indwelling sin 
one of “God’s creatures,” that God should show it any favour, and 
should refuse his assistance to the faithful believers, who are determined 
to give it no quarter? Can indwelling sin be converted to God, as the 
indwelling Canaanites might, and as some of them undoubtedly were ? 
3. But the capital flaws of Mr. Henry’s argument are, I apprehend, 
two suppositions, the absurdity of which is glaring :—* Corruption,” 
‘says he, “is left remaining in the hearts of good Christians, that they 
‘May learn war, may keep on the whole armour of God, and stand con- 
ye upon their guard.” Just as if Christ had not “learned war, 
kept on the breastplate of righteousness, and stood continually upon his 
guard,” without the help of indwelling sin! Just as if the world, the 
devil, the weakness of the flesh, and death, our last enemy, with which 
‘our Lord so severely conflicted, were not adversaries powerful enough 
|to prove us, to engage us to learn war, and to make us “keep on and 
use the whole armour of God” to the end of our life! The other absurd 
supposition is, that “pride, and security, and other sins,” which are 
supposed to be typified by “the wild beasts” mentioned in Deut. vii, 22, 
\will increase upon us by the destruction of indwelling sin. But is it not 
as ridiculous to suppose this, as to say, Pride will increase upon us by 
destruction of pride ; and carnal security will gather strength by the 
‘extirpation of carnal security, and by the implanting of constant watch- 
| fulness, which is a branch of the Christian perfection which we contend 
for? 
| 4. With respect to the inference which Mr. Henry draws from these 
‘words, “ Thou mayest not consume them at once : the Lord will put them 
out before thee by little and little ;” is it not highly absurd also? Does he 
give us the shadow of an argument to prove that this verse was spoken 
of our indwelling corruptions ; and suppose it was, would this prove that 
Vor. I. _ 39 


“ — a 
= 


610 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


the doctrine of a death purgatory is true? You say to a greedy persor 
You must eat your dinner “by little and little,” you cannot swallow 
down at one gulp. A farmer teaches his son to plough, and says, W. 
cannot plough this field at once, but we may plough it “ by little ar 
little,” i.e. by making one furrow after another, till we end the las 
furrow. Hence I draw the following inferences :—We eat our meal: 
and plough our fields, “ by little and little ;” and therefore no dinner eg 
be eaten, and no field ploughed before death. A surgeon says, “ the 
the healing of a wound is carried on gradually :” hence his prejudicec 
mate runs away with the notion that no wound can be healed so long a 
a patient is alive. Who does not see the flaw of these conclusions ? 
5. But the greatest absurdity, I apprehend, is yet behind. Not 
observe that we do not remember to have read any command in ou 
Bibles not to consume sin at once ; or any declaration that God will pu 
it out only “ by little and little ;’ we ask, What length of time do yo 
suppose God means? You make him say that he will make an end of ou 
indwelling sin “ by little and little ;” do you think he means four days, fou 
years, or fourscore years? If you say that God cannot or will x 
wholly cleanse the thoughts of our hearts under fourscore years, yi 
send all who die under that age into hell, or into some purgatory whe: 
they must wait till the eighty years of their conflict with indwelling s 
are ended. If you say that God can or will do it in four days, but m 
under, you absurdly suppose that the penitent thief remained at lea 
three days in paradise full of indwelling sin; seeing his sanctificati 
was to be “ carried on gradually” in the space of four days at leas 
If you are obliged to grant that when the words “ by little and little” a 
applied to the destruction of indwelling sin, they may mean four hot 
(the time which the penitent thief probably lived after his conversion,) 
well as four days; do you not begin to be ashamed of your systen 
And if you reply, that death alone fully extirpates indwelling sin, do 
not this favourite tenet of yours overturn Mr. Henry’s doctrine about | 
necessity of the slow, “gradual,” destruction of indwelling sin? M 
mot a sinner believe in a moment, when God helps him to belie: 
And may not a believer (whom you suppose necessarily full of indwe 
ing sin as long as he is in this world) die in a moment? If you ansy 
in the negative, you deny the sudden death of John the Baptist, E 
.James, and St. Paul, who had their heads cut off in a moment: im 
word, you deny that any believer can die suddenly. If you reply in # 
affirmative, you give up the point, and grant that indwelling sin may 
instantaneously destroyed. And now, what becomes of Mr. He 
argument, which supposes that sanctification can neyer be ¢ 
without a long, gradual process ; and that the extirpation of sin 
take place but “by little and little ?” p 
I have set before thee, reader, the lights and shades of our doctri ine 
I have produced our arguments, and those of our opponents ; anil 
say, which of them bear the stamp of imperfection? If thou pronoun 
that wrim and thummim, light and perfection, belong to the arguments 
of Mr. Hill, Mr. Toplady, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Henry, I must lay 
my pen, and deplore the infelicity of our having a reason, which 
in my breast what it says in thine. But if thou find, after ma 
deliberation, that our arguments are “light in the Lord,” as being me 


. 
4 § ? 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 611 


agreeable fo the dictates of unprejudiced reason, than those of our 
_ antagonists, more conformable to the plain declarations of the sacred 
_ writers, fitter to encourage believers in the way of holiness, more suit- 
able to the nature of undefiled religion, and better adapted to the display 

of the Redeemer’s glory; I shall enjoy the double pleasure of em- 
bracing the truth, and of embracing her together with thee. In the mean- 

_ time, closing here the argumentative part of this essay, I just beg the 
' continuance of thy favourable attention, while I practically address 
perfect Pharisees, prejudiced imperfectionists, imperfect believers, “si 
Perfect Christians. 


a SECTION XVII. 
i An address to perfect Christian Pharisees. 


_ I appress you first, ye perfect Christian Pharisees, because ye are 
most ready to profess Christian perfection, though, alas! ye stand at 
the greatest distance from perfect humility, the grace which is most 
essential to the perfect Christian’s character ; and because the enemies 
of our doctrine make use of you first, when they endeavour to root it 
up from the earth. 

That ye may know whom I mean by perfect Christian Pharisees, 
give me leave to show you your own picture, in the glass of a plain 
description. Ye have, professedly, entered into the fold where Christ’s 
sheep, which are perfected 1 in love, rest all at each other’s feet, and at 
the feet of the Lamb of God. But how have ye entered? By “Christ 
the door,” or at the door of presumption? Not by Christ the door: for 
) Christ is meekness and lowliness manifested in the flesh ; but ye are still 
}ungentle and fond of praise. When he pours outyhis soul as a Divine 
ophet, he says, “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart ; 
| take my yoke upon you, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” But 
ye overlook this humble door. Your proud, gigantic minds are above 
| ‘stooping low enough to follow Him, who “made himself of no reputa- 
| tion” that he might raise us to heavenly honours ; and who, to pour just 
/ contempt upon human pride, had his first night’s lodging in a stable, and 
}spent his last night partly on the cold ground, in a storm of Divine 
/ wrath, and partly in an ignominious confinement, exposed to the greatest 
lindignities, which Jews and Gentiles could pour upon him. He rested 
| his infant head upon hay, his dying head upon thos. A manger was 
‘his cradle, and a cross his death bed. Thirty years he travelled from 

the sordid stable to the accursed tree, unnoticed by his own peculiar 

: people. In the brightest of his days, poor fishermen, some Galilean 

}women, and a company of shouting children, formed all his retinue. 

: Shepherds were his first attendants, and malefactors his last com- 
|Ppanions. 

: His first beatitude was, “ Blessed are the poor in spirit ;” and the 
jlast, “ Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, 
jand say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” His 
frst doctrine was, “ Repent :” nor was the last unlike to it: “If I have 


612 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. . 


washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another’s feet, for I h 
given you an example that ye should do as I have done to : 
that will be first among you, let him be the least of all.” Now, f 
from practising with godly sincerity this last lesson of our humble Lor 
you do not so much as truly relish the first. Ye do not delight in, nay 
ye abhor penitential poverty of spirit. Your humility is not cordial, ar 
wrought into your nature by grace; but complimental, and wove! 
into your carriage by art. Ye are humble in looks, in gestures, i 
voice, in dress, in behaviour ; so far as external humility helps you 
secure the reputation of perfect Christians, at which ye aspire from 
motive of Pharisaic ambition: but ye continue strangers to the childlike 
simplicity, and unaffected lowliness of Christ’s perfect disciples. Yt 
are the very reverse of those “Israelites in whom there is no guile. 
Ye resemble the artful Gibeonites, who, for a time, imposed upo 
Joshua’s artless simplicity. Your feigned profession of special grace 
deceives those of God’s children, who have more of the simplicity of 
the dove than of the serpent’s wisdom. Ye choose the lowest place 
but ye do not love it. If ye’ cheerfully take it, it is not among you 
equals, but among your inferiors: because you think that such a cot 
descending step may raise the credit of your humility, without endanger 
ing your superiority. If ye stoop, and go down, it is not because 
see yourselves unworthy of the seat of honour; but because ye hop 
that people will by and by say to you, Come up higher. Your Pha 
saic cunning aims at wearing at once the coronet of genuine humilit 
and the crown of self-exalting pride. Ye love to be esteemed of men f 
your goodness and devotion: ye want to be admired for your exactnes 
zeal, and gracious attainments. The pride of the Jewish Pharisees w: 
coarse in comparison of yours. They wore the rough garment, and ye 
wear the silks of spiritual vanity; and even when ye dye them in th 
blood of the Lamb, which you extol in word, it is to draw the con 
dence of humble Christians by your Christian appearance and languag 
more than to follow the propensity of a new nature, which loves to 
clothed with humility, and feels itself in its own centre when it rests i 
deep poverty of spirit, and sees that God is “ all in all.” 
One of the greatest ends of Christ’s coming into the world, was 
empty us of ourselves, and to fill us with humble love ; but ye are st 
full of yourselves and void of Christ, that is, void of humility incarnat 
Ye still aim at some wrong mark ; whether it be self glory, self interes 
self pleasure, self party, or self applause. In a word, one selfish schem 
or another, contrary to the pure love of God and of your neighbor 
secretly destroys the root of your profession, and may be compared 1 
the unseen worm that ate the root of Jonah’s gourd. Ye have a narrow 
contracted spirit: ye do not gladly sacrifice your private satisfactiol 
your interest, your reputation, your prejudices, to the general interest of 
truth and love, and to the public good of the whole body of Christ. ~ 
are in seeret bondage to men, places, and things. Ye do not hearti 
entertain the wisdom from above, which is pure, gentle, easy to be en- 
treated, and full of mercy. Nay, ye are above conviction: gross siM- 
ners yield to truth before you. Like Jehu, ye are zealous, and ye 
pretend that it is for the Lord of hosts: but alas! it is for your opinions, 


aq 


your party, your honour. In a word, ye do not walk in constant, solemn 


; 
# 


° LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 613 


expectation of death and judgment; your will is not broken; your car- 
nal confidence is vet alive; the heavenly dove does not sit in your 
_ breast: self; wrapt up in the cloak of humility, is still set up in your 
hearts, and in secret you serve that cursed idol more than God. Satan, 
transformed into an angel of light, has artfully led you to the profession 
of Christian perfection through a circle of external performances, through 
glorious forms of doctrine in the letter, and through a fair show of zeal 
for complete holiness: the Lord, to punish your formality, has in part 
‘given you up to your delusion; and now ye as much believe yourselves 
_ perfect Christians, as the Pharisees, in our Lord’s day, believed them- 
selves perfect Jews. , 
/ Mr. Wesley, in his Plain Account of Christian Perfection, has borne 
his faithful testimony against such witnesses of perfect love as ye are. 
If ye despise this address, regard his remarks : “Others,” says he, “ who 
think they have the direct witness of their being renewed in love, are 
| Revertheless manifestly wanting in the fruit. Some are undoubtedly 
‘Wanting in long suffering, Christian resignation. They do not see the 
hand of God in whatever occurs, and cheerfully embrace it. They do 
Mot ‘in every thing give thanks, and rejoice evermore.’ They are not 
happy; at least, not always happy. For sometimes they complain. 
‘They say, ‘This is hard!’ Some are wanting in gentleness. They 
‘resist evil,’ instead of turning the other cheek. They do not receive 
reproach with gentleness: no, nor even reproof. Nay, they are not 
able to bear contradiction without the appearance, at least, of resent- 
ment. If they are reproved, or contradicted, though mildly, they do not 
take it well. They behave with more distance and reserve than they 
did before, &c. Some are wanting in goodness. They are not kind, 
mild, sweet, amiable, soft, and loving at all times, in their spirit, in their 
words, in their look, in their air, in the whole tenor of their behaviour ; 
not kind to all, high and low, rich and poor, without respect of person ; 
particularly to them that are out of the way, to opposers, and to those 
of their own household. They do not long, study, endeavour, by every 
‘means, to make all about them happy. Some are wanting in fidelity, a 
nice regard to truth, simplicity, and godly sincerity. Their love is 
hardly ‘ without dissimulation :” something like guile is found in their 
mouth. To avoid roughness, they lean to the other extreme. They 
are smooth to an excess, so as scarce to avoid a degree of fawning. 
Some are wanting in meekness, quietness of spirit, composure, evenness 
of temper. They are up and down, sometimes high, sometimes low; 
their mind is not well balanced. Their affections are either not in due 
proportion ; they have too much of the one, too little of the other; or 
they are not duly mixt and tempered together so as to counterpoise 
each other. Hence there is often a jar. Their soul is out of tune, 
and cannot make the true harmony. Some are wanting in temperance. 
' They do not steadily use that kind and degree of food which they know, 
or might know, would most conduce to the health, strength, and vigour 
of the body. Or they are not temperate in sleep: they do not rigor- 
ously adhere to what is best for body and mind. They use neither 
fasting nor abstinence,” &c. 
_ Ihave described your delusion: but who can describe its fatal conse- 
quences? Who can tell the mischief it has done, and continues to do? 


| 


Z 
Y : 


have renounced my hopes, and I equally abhor the doctrine of evan. 


614 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. ' 


The few sincere. perfectionists, and the multitude of captious imperfee. 
tionists, have equally found you out. The former are grieved for 7 
and the latter triumph through you. 

When the sincere perfectionists consider the inconsistency of you r 
profession, they are ready to give up their faith in Christ’s all-cleansing 
blood, and their hope of i a clean heart in this life. They are 
tempted to follow the multitude of professors, who sit down in self 
imputed righteousness, or in Solifidian notions of an ideal perfection in 
Christ. And it is well if some of them have not already yielded to the 
temptation, and begun to fight against the hopes which they once enter- 
tained of loving God with all their hearts. It is well if some, through 
you, have not been led to say, “I once sweetly enjoyed the thought of 
doing the will of God on earth, as it is done in heaven. Once I hope 
fully prayed God would ‘so cleanse my heart, that I might perfectly 
love and worthily magnify his holy name’ in this world. But now 


gelical perfection, and that of evangelical worthiness. When I was a 
young convert, I believed that Christ could really make an end of all 
moral pollution, cast out the man of sin, and cleanse us from the sins of 
the heart as well as from outward iniquity in this life; but I soon met 
with unhumbled, self-willed people, who, boldly standing up for this 
glorious liberty, made me question the truth of the doctrine. Nay, in 
process of time, I found that some of those who most confidently pro- 
fessed to have attained this salvation, were farther from the gentleness, 
simplicity, catholic spirit, and unfeigned humility of Christ, than many 
believers, who had never considered the doctrine of Christian perfection 
These offences striking in with the disappomtment which I myself met 
with, in feebly seeking the pearl of perfect love, made me conclude that it 
can no more be found than the philosopher’s stone, and that they are 
all either fools or knaves, who set believers upon seeking it. And now 
I every where decry the doctrine of perfection as a dangerous delusion, 
I set people against it wherever I go; and my zeal in this respect ha 
been attended with the greatest success. I have damped the hopes of 
many perfectionists! And I have proselyted several to the doctrine of 
Christian imperfection. With them I now quietly wait to be purified 
from indwelling sin in the article of death, and to be made perfect i 
another world.” 

This is, I fear, the language of many hearts, although it is not openly 
spoken by many lips. ‘Thus are you, O ye perfect Pharisees, the great 
instruments by which the tempter tears away the shield of those un 
settled Israelites, who look more at your inconsistencies than they doa 
the beauty of holiness, the promise of God, the blood of Christ, and thi 
power of the Spirit. rf 

But this is not all; as ye destroy the budding faith of sincere perfec- 
tionists, so ye strengthen the unbelief of the Solifidians. Through you 
their prejudices are grown up into a fixed detestation of Christian per-_ 
fection. Ye have hardened them in their error, and furnished them 
with plausible arguments to destroy the truth which ye contend for. 
Did ye never hear their triumphs? “Ha! ha! So would we have it! 
These are some of the people who stand up for sinless perfection! 


They are all alike. Did not I tell you that you would find them out . 


a 


LAST CHECK Tu ANTINOMIANISM. 615 


be no better than temporary monsters? What monstrous pride! What 
touchiness, obstinacy, bigotry, and stoicism characterizes them! How 
do they strain at gnats and swallow camels! I had rather be an open 
drunkard than a perfectionist. Publicans and harlots shall enter into 
the kingdom of heaven before them.” These are the cutting speeches 
to which your glaring inconsistency, and the severe prejudices of our 
opponents, give birth. Is it not deplorable that your tempers should 
thus drive men to abhor the doctrine which your lips recommend ? 

_ And what do you get by thus dispiriting the real friends of Christian 
' perfection, and by furnishing its sworn enemies with such sharp 
weapons against it? Think ye that the mischief ye do shall not recoil 
upon yourselves? Is noi Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
ever? If he detested the perfect Pharisaism of unhumbled Jews, will 
he admire the perfect self-righteousness of aspiring Christians? If he 
formerly “ resisted the proud, and gave grace to the humble,” what rea- 
son have ye to hope that he will submit to your spiritual pride, and reward 
your religious ostentation with a crown of glory? Ye perhaps cry out 
against Antinomianism, and J commend you for it: but are ye not deeply 
fainted with the worst sort of Antinomianism—that which starches, stiffens, 
and swells the soul? Ye justly bear your testimony against those who 
render the law of Christ of none effect to believers, by “degrading it into 
a rule which they stripped of the punitive and remunerative sanctions 
with which it stands armed in the sacred records. But are ye not doubly 
guilty, who maintain that this law is still in force as a law, and neverthe- 
less refuse to pay it sincere, internal obedience? For when ye break 
the first commandment of Christ’s evangelical law, by practically dis- 
| carding penitential “poverty of spirit ;” and when ye transgress the 
last, by abhorring the lowest place, by disdaining to “ wash each other’ s 
| feet,’ and by refusing to “prefer others in honour before yourselves ;? 
are ye not guilty of breaking all the law by breaking it in one point,— 
| im the capital point of humble love, which runs through all the paris of 

the law, as vital blood does through all the parts of the body? O how 
much more dangerous is the case of an unhumbled man, who stiffly 
| walks in robes of self-made perfection, than that of an humble man who 
through prejudice, and the force of example, meekly walks in robes of 
self-imputed righteousness ! 

Behold, thou callest thyself a perfect Christian, and restest in the 
evangelical law of Christ, which is commonly called the Gospel: thou 
makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things 
that are more excellent, even the way of Christian perfection, being 
instructed out of the Gospel; and art confident that “ thou thyself art a 
guide of the blind, a light of them who are in darkness, an instructer of 
the foolish, and a teacher of babes,” or imperfect believers ; having the 
form of knowledge and of the truth in the Gospel. Thou therefore who 
feachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest, 
another should not break the law of Christ, through breaking it dis. 
honourest thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed through you 
among those who seek an occasion to blaspheme it, Romans ii, 17, &c. 
And think ye that ye shall escape the mghteous judgment of God? 
Haas Christ ’no woes but for the Jewish Pharisees? © be no longer 
ete. Before ye are punished by being here given up to a repro 


*. 


616 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


bate mind, and by being hereafter cast into the hell of hypocrites, the 
outer darkness where there will be more weeping, wailing, and gnashing 
of teeth than in any other hell! Before ye are overtaken by the awfu 
hour of death, and the dreadful day of judgment, practically learn that 
Christian perfection is the mind which was in Christ, especially his 
humble, meek, quiet mind ; his gentle, free, loving spirit. Aim at it Dy 
sinking into deep self abhorrence ; and not by using, as ye have hitherta 
done, the empty talk and profession of Christian perfection as a step to 
reach the top of spiritual pride. 

Mistake me not: I do not blame you for holding the doctrine of Chris. 
tian perfection, but for wilfully missing the only way that leads to it; 
mean the humble, meek, and lovi ing Jesus, who says, “I am the way, 
and the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved into so 
great salvation. He that entereth not by this door into this sheep fold, 
but climbeth up some other way, [and especially he that climbeth by the 
way of Pharisaic formality,] the same is a thief and a robber :” he rob 
Christ of his glory, and pretends to what he has no more right to than 
a thief has to your property. Would ye then be right? Do not cast 
away the doctrine of an evangelically sinless holiness; but contend 
more for it with your heart than with your lips. With all your soul 
press after such a perfection as Christ, St. Paul, and St. John taught 
and exemplified; a perfection of meekness and humble love. Earnesth 
believe all the woes which the Gospel denounces against self-righteous 
Pharisees, and all the blessings which it promises to perfect penitents 
Drink less into the letter, and more into the Spirit of Christ, till, like @ 
fountain of living water, it spring up to everlasting life in your heart. 
Ye have climbed to the Pharisaic perfection of Saul of Tarsus, when, 
“touching the righteousness of the law, he was blameless.” Would ye 
now attain the evangelical perfection which he was possessed of, when 
he said, “Let us, as many as are perfect, be thus minded?” Only 
follow him through the regeneration: fall to the dust before God; rise 
conscious of the blindness of your heart, meekly deplore it with pent. 
tential shame; and if you follow the directions laid down in the thire 
address, I doubt not but, dangerous as your case is at present, you wil 
be, like St. Paul, as eminent for Christian perfection, as you ha’ 
hitherto been for Pharisaic formality. 


SECTION XVIII. 
An address to prejudiced imperfectionists. 


I rear that, next to the persons whom I have just addressed, ye m 
jure the cause of holiness, O ye believers, who have been deluded into 
doctrinal Antinomianism, by the bad arguments which are answered 1 
the preceding pages. Permit me therefore to address you next: nor 
suffer prejudice to make you throw away this expostulation, before you 
have granted if a fair perusal. 

Ye directly or indirectly plead for the necessary continuance of in. 
dwelling sin in your own hearts, and in the hearts of all true Christians. 
But may I be so bold as to ask, Who gave you leave so to do? And 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 617 


when were ye commissioned to propagate this unholy gospel? Was 
it at your baptism, when ye were ranked among Christ’s soldiers, 
and received a Christian name, in token that ye would “keep God’s holy 
will and commandments all the days of your life?” And that you would 
“not be ashamed to fight manfully against the world, the flesh, and the 
devil, unto your life’s end?” Are not these three enemies strong enough 
sufficiently to exercise your patience, and to try your warlike skill to 


_ the last? Did your sponsors promise for you that you would quarter a 


fourth enemy, called indwelling sin, in your very breast, lest ye should not 
have enemies enough to fight against? On the contrary, were ye not 
exhorted “utterly to abolish the whole body of sin?” If so, is it not 


strange that ye should spend part of your precious time in pleading, 
under various pretexts, for the preservation of heart sin, a sin this, which 


ives life, warmth, and vigour to the whole body of sin? And is it not 


_ deplorable that, instead of conscientiously fulfilling your baptismal engage- 
_ meats, ye should attack those who desire to fulfil them by seeking to have 
_ the whole body of sin” utterly abolished ? 


_ But ye are, perhaps, ministers of the Established Church : and; in this 
case, I ask, When did the bishop send you upon this strange warfare ? 
Was it at your confirmation, in which he bound upon you your solemn 
obligations to “keep God’s holy will and commandments” so as utterly 
“to abolish the whole body of sin?” Is it probable that he commissioned 
you to pull down what he confirmed, and to demolish the perfection 
which he made you vow to attain, and to “ walk in all the days of your 
life ?” If the bishop gave you no such commission at your confirmation, 
did he do it at your ordination, when he said, “ Receive authority to 
preach the word of God?” Is there no ae between “the word 
of God,” which cuts up all sin, root and branch, and the word of Satan, 
which asserts the propriety of the continuance of heart sin during the 
term of life? If not, did the bishop do it when he exhorted and charged 
you “never to cease your labour, care, and diligence, till you have 
done all that lieth in you, to bring all such as are committed to your 
charge to that agreement of faith, and that perfectness of age in Christ, 


| that there shall be no place left among you for error in religion or 
' yiciousness in life ;” that is, I apprehend, till the truth of the Gospel and 


the love of the Spirit have perfectly purified the minds, and renewed 
the hearts of all your hearers? 

How can ye, in all your confessions and sacramental offices, renounce 
sin, the accursed thing which God abhors, and which obedient believers 
detest ; and yet plead for its life, its strength, its constant energy, so long 
as we are in this world? We could better bear with you, if ye appro- 
priated a hand or a foot, an eye or an ear to sin, during the term of 
life; but who can bear your pleas for the necessary continuance of sin 
in the heart? Is it not enough that this murderer of Christ, and of all 
mankind, rambles about the walls of the city? Will ye still insinuate 
that he must have the citadel to the last, and keep it garrisoned with 
filthy lusts, base affections, bad tempers, or “ diabolonians,” who, like 
prisoners, show themselves at the grate : and “ like snakes, toads, and wild 
beasts, are the fiercer for being confined?” Who has taught you thus to 
represent Christ as the keeper, and not the destroyer of our corruptions ? 
If believers be truly willing to get rid of sin, but cannot, because Christ 


618 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


has bolted their hearts with an adamantine decree, which prevents sit 
from being turned out: if he have irrevocably given leave to indwelling 
sin, to quarter for life in every Christian’s heart, as the king of France, 
in the last century, gave leave to his dragoons to quarter for some months 
in the houses of the poor, oppressed Protestants, who does not see that 
Christ may be called the protector of indwelling sin, rather than its 
enemy ? , 

Ye absurdly complain that the doctrine of Christian perfection does not 
exalt our Saviour, because it represents him as radically saying his obe-_ 
dient people from their indwelling sin in this life. But are ye not guilty 
of the very error which ye charge upon us, when ye insinuate that he” 
cannot or will not say to our inbred sins, “ Those mine enemies which 
will not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before — 
me?” Ifacommon judge has power to pass sentence of death upon all _ 
the robbers and murderers who are properly prosecuted; and if they — 
are hanged and destroyed in a few days, weeks, or months, in consequence 
of his sentence, how strangely do ye reflect upon Christ, and revive the 
Agag within us, when ye insinuate that he, the Judge of all, who was 
“manifested for this very purpose, that he might destroy the works of the 
devil,” so far forgets his errand, that he never destroys indwelling sin in 
one of his willing people, so long as they are in this world, although that 
sin is the capital and most mischievous “ work of the devil ?” 

Your doctrine of the necessary continuance of indwelling sin in all 
faithful believers traduces not only the Son of man, but also the ador- 
able trinity. The Father gives his only begotten Son, his Isaac, to be 
crucified, that the ram, sin, may be offered up and slam. But you insinu- 
ate that the life of that cursed ram is secured by a decree, which allots 
it the heart of all believers for a safe retreat, and a warm stable, so lone 
as we are in this world. You represent the Son as an almighty Saviour, 
who offers to “make us free” from sin; and yet appoints that the gall. 
ing yoke of indwelling sin shall remain tied to, and bound upon our very 
hearts for life. Ye describe the Holy Ghost as a Sanctifier, who 
applies Christ’s all-cleansing blood to the believer’s heart ; filling it with 
the oil of holiness and gladness: and yet ye suppose that our hearts 
must necessarily remain “desperately wicked,” and full of indwelling 
sin! Is it right to pour contempt upon Christianity, by charging such 
inconsistencies upon Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ? : 

It can hardly be expected that those, who thus misrepresent then 
God, should do their neighbour justice. Hence the liberty which ye 
take to fix a blot upon the most holy characters. What have the pro- 
phets and apostles done to you that ye should represent them, not only 
as men who had hearts partly evil to the last, but also as advocates for the 
necessary indwelling of sin in all believers till death? And why do ye 
so eagerly take your advantage of holy Paul in particular, and eateh at 


sold under sin,” even when ‘he expected “a crown of righteousness at 
the hand of his righteous Judge,” for having “ finished his course with 
the just men made perfect?” Nay, what have we done to you, that ye 
should endeavour to take from us the greatest comfort we have in fight-— 
ing against the remains of sin? Why will ye deprive us of the pleasing 
and purifying hope of taking the Jericho which we encompass, and kill. 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 619 . 


ing the Goliath whom we attack? And what has indwelling sin done for 
that ye shouid still plead for the propriety of its continuance in our 
hearts? Is it not the root of all outward sin, and the spring of all the 
of iniquity, which carry desolation through every part of the 
? If ye hate the fruit, why do ye so eagerly contend for the neces- 
Sary continuance of the root? And if ye favour godliness, (for many 
of you undoubtedly do,) why do you put such a conclusive argument 
as this into the mouths of the wicked: “’These good men contend for 
a propriety of indwelling sin, that grace may abound : and why should 
we not plead for the propriety of outward sin for the same important 
| reason? Does not God approve of an honest heart, whieh scorns to 
cloak the inward iniquity with outward demureness ?” 
_ _ Mr. Hill has lately published an ingenious dialogue, called, A Lash to 
\ usiasm, in which, (p. 26,) he uses an argument against pleading for 
ewarmness, which, with very little variation, may be retorted against 
his plea for indwelling sin :—* Suffer me,” says he, “to put the senti- 
| ments of such persons [as plead for the middle way of lukewarmness] 
into the form of a prayer, which we may suppose would run in some 
| such expressions as the following: ‘O Lord, thy word requires that I 
‘should love thee with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, 
| and with all my strength; that I should renounce the world, [and 
edwelling sin,} and should present myself as a holy, reasonable, and 


| lively sacrifice unto thee: but, Lord, these are such over-righteous 
| extremes [and such heights of sinless perfection] as I cannot away with ; 
| and therefore grant that thy love, and a moderate share of the love of 
the world, [or of indwelling sin,] may both reign [or at least continue] 
in my heart at once. I ask it for Jesus Christ’s sake, Amen.’” Mr. 
) Hill justly adds, « Now, dear madam, if you are shocked at such a 
| petition, consider that it is the exact language of your own heart while 
| you can plead for what you call the middle way of religion.” And I 
beg leave to take up his own argument, and to add, with equal propriety, 
_ Now, dear sirs, if you are shocked at such a petition, consider that it 
is the exact language of your own heart while ye can plead for what ye 
eall indwelling sin, or the remains of sin.” 
_ Nor can I see what ye get by such a conduct. The excruciating 
thorn of indwelling sin sticks in your hearts; we assert that Christ can 
and will extract it, if ye plead his promise of “ sanctifying you wholly in 
soul, body, and spirit.” But ye say, “ This cannot be; the thorn must 
stay in till death extract it; and the leprosy shall cleave to the walls till 
the house is demolished.” Just as if Christ, by radically cleansing the 
lepers in the days of his flesh, had not given repeated proofs of the 
absurdity of your argument! Just as if part of the Gospel were not, 
“ The lepers are cleansed,” and, “if the Son make you free, ye shall be 
free indeed !” . 
_ If ye get nothing in pleading for Christian imperfection, permit me to 
you what you lose by it, and what ye might get by steadily going on 
‘0 perfection. 
_ 1. If ye earnestly aimed at Christian perfection, ye would have a 
bright testimony in your own souls fhat you are sincere, and that ye 
walk agreeably to your baptismal engagements. I have already observed, 
that some of the most pious Calvinists doubt if those who do not pursue 


620 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, 


Christian perfection are Christians at all. Hence it follows, that th 
more earnestly you pursue it, the stronger will be your confidence th 
you are upright Christians ; and when ye shall be perfected im love, } 
shall have that evidence of your sincerity which will perfectly “ cast o 
servile fear, whftch hath torment,” and nourish the filial fear which he 
safety and delight. It is hard to conceive how we can constantly enjo 
the full assurance of faith, out of the state of Christian perfection. Fo 
so long as a Christian inwardly breaks Christ’s evangelical law, he % 
justly condemned in his own conscience. If his heart do not conde: 
him for it, it is merely because he is asleep in the lap of Antinomianism 
On the other hand, says St. John, “If our heart condemn us, God | 
greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” that make for ¢ 
condemnation. But if we “love in deed and in truth,” which none bt 
the perfect do at all times, “ hereby we know that we are of the tru 
and shall assure our hearts before him,” 1 John iti, 19, 20. 
2. The perfect Christian, who has left all to follow Christ, is peculi 
near and dear to God. He is, if I may use the expression, one of God 
favourites ; and his prayers are remarkably answered. This will app 
to you indubitable, if ye can receive the testimony of those who 2 
perfected in obedient love. “ Behold,” say they, “ whatsoever we as 
we receive of him; because we keep his commandments, and do tho: 
things which are pleasing in his sight ;” that is, because we are perfecte 
in obedient love, 1 John iii, 22. This peculiar blessing ye lose 
despising Christian perfection. Nay, so great is the union which subsis 
between God and the perfect members of his Son, that it is compared | 
dwelling in God, and having God dwelling in us, in such a manner thi 
the Father, the Son, and the Comforter, are said to make their al 
with us. “At that day [when ye shall be perfected in one] ye shi 
know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and J in you. If a ma 
love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him; ai 
we will come to him, and make our abode with him,” John xiv, 20, 2 
Again: “ He that keepeth God’s commandments dwelleth in God, a 
God in him,” 1 John iii, 24.“ Ye are my [dearest] friends, if ye: 
whatsoever I command you,” [i. e. if ye attain the perfection of yo 
dispensation,] John xv, 14. Once raore :— Keep my commandment 
and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comfort. 
that he may abide with you for ever,” John xiv, 15, 16. From thes 
scriptures it appears that, under every dispensation, the perfect, or th 
who keep the commandments, have unspeakable advantages, from wh 
the lovers of imperfection debar themselves. ly 
3. Ye bring far less glory to God in the state of indwelling sin the 
ye would do if ye were perfected in love; for perfect Christians (othe 
things being equal) glorify God more than those who remain 0 
inbred iniquity. Hence it is, that in the very chapter where our Lo 
so strongly presses Christian perfection upon his disciples, he say 
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your goc 
works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven,” Matt. y, 16. 
“ Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit,” John xv, 8 
It is true that the fruit of the perfeét is not always relished by men, who 
Judge only according to appearances; but God, who judges righte 1S 
judgment, finds it rich and precious ; and therefore the two mites which — 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 621 


| the poor widow gave with a cheerful and perfect heart, were more 
| precious in his account, and brought him more glory, than all the money 
which the imperfect worshippers cast into the treasury, though some of 
them cast inmuch. Hence also our Lord commanded that the work of 
perfect love which Mary wrought when she anointed his feet for burial 
should be told for a memorial of her, wherever this [the Christian] 
Gospel should be preached in the whole world.” Such is the honour 
which the Lord puts upon the branches in him that bear fruit to perfection } 
4, The perfect Christian (other things being equal) is a more useful 
member of society than the imperfect. Never will ye be such humble 
_men, such good parents, such dutiful children, such loving brothers, such 
loyal subjects, such kind neighbours, such indulgent husbands, and such 
faithful friends, as when ye shall have obtained the perfect sincerity of 
‘obedience. Ye will then, in your degree, have the simplicity of the 
gentle dove, the patience of the laborious ox, the courage of the magnani- 
“Mmous lion, and the wisdom of the wary serpent, without any of its poison. 
In your little sphere of action ye will abound in “ the work of faith, the 
patience of hope, and the labour of love,” far more than ye did before : 
for a field properly weeded, and cleared from briers, is naturally more 
fruitful than one which is shaded by spreading brambles, or filled with 
indwelling roots of noxious weeds; it being a capital mistake of the 
spiritual husbandmen who till the Lord’s field in mystical Geneva, to 
Suppose that the plant of humility thrives best when the roots of in- 
dwelling sin are twisted round its root. 

__ 5. None but “just men made perfect are meet to be made partakers 
of the inheritance among the saints in light ;” an inheritance this, which 
‘no man is fit for, till he has “ purified himself from the filthiness of the - 
flesh and spirit.” If modern divines, therefore, assure you that a believer, 
full of indwelling sin, has a full title to heaven, believe them not: for the 
Holy Ghost has said, that the believer who “ breaks the law of liberty 
‘in one point, is guilty of all,” and that no defilement shall enter into hea- 
ven: and our Lord himself has assured us, that “the pure in heart shall 
see God,” and that they who are ready for that sight, “ went in with the 
bridegroom to the marriage feast of the Lamb.” And who is ready? 
Undoubtedly the believer whose lamp is trimmed and burning. But 
is a spiritual lamp trimmed, when its flame is darkéned by the black 
fungus of indwelling sm? Again: who shall be saved into glory, but 
the man whose “heart was washed from iniquity?” But is that heart 
washed, which continues full of indwelling corruption? Wo, therefore, 
be to the heathens, Jews, and Christians, who trifle away “the accepted 
time,” and die without being in a state of heathen, Jewish, or Christian 
perfection! They have no chance of going to heaven, but through the 
purgatory preached by the heathens, the Papists, and the Calvinists. 
_ And should the notions of these purgatories be groundless, it unavoidably 
follows, that unpurged or imperfect souls must, at death, rank with the 
unready souls whom our Lord calls “ foolish virgins,” and against whom 
the door of heaven will be shut. How awful is this consideration, my 
dear brethren! How should it make us stretch every nerve till we have 
attained the perfection of our dispensation! I would not encourage tor- 
menting fears in an unscriptural manner ; but I should rejoice if all who 
all Jesus Lorp, would mind his solemn ‘declarations, “J say unto you, 


- 


a 
é 


622 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. '— 


my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, &c ; but I will fore 
warn you whom you shall fear: fear Him, who after he hath killed, ha 
power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, fear him,” who will bur 
in the fire of wrath those who harbour the indwelling man of sin, lest he 
should be utterly consumed by the fire of love. 

Should ye cry cut against this doctrine, and ask if all imperfe C 
Christians are in a damnable state? We reply, that so long as a Chris 
tian believer sincerely presses after Christian perfection, he is safe ; 
cause he is in the way of duty: and were he to die at midnight, before 
midnight God would certainly bring him to Cliistian perfection, or bring 
Christian perfection to him; for we “are confident of this very thi 
that Ife who hath begun a good work in them, will perform it until the 
day of Jesus Christ, because they work out their salvation with fear an¢ 
trembling.” But if a believer fall, loiter, and rest upon former expe: 
riences ; depending upon a self-made, Pharisaical perfection, our chief 
message to him is that of St. Paul, “ Awake, thou that sleepest! Awake 
to righteousness, and sin not, for thou hast not the heart-purifying 
knowledge of God, which is eternal life. Arise from the dead;” cal 
for oil; “and Christ will give thee light.” Otherwise thou shalt she e 
the dreadful fate of the lukewarm Laodiceans, and of the foolish virgins, 
“ whose lamps went out,” instead of “shining more and more to the 
perfect day.” 

6. This is not all: as ye will be fit for judgment, and a glorious 
heaven, when ye shall be perfected in love; so you will actually enjoy 
a gracious heaven in your own souls. You will possess “ within you 
the kingdom of God,” which consists in settled “righteousness, peace 
and joy in the Holy Ghost.” But so long as ye neglect Christian per- 
fection, and continue sold under indwelling sin, ye not only risk the loss 
of the heaven of heavens, but ye lose a little heaven upon earth; for 
perfect Christians are so full of peace and love, that they “triumph 
Christ, with joy unspeakable, and full of glory, and rejoice in tribulation 
with a patience which has its perfect work.” Yea, they “count it all 
joy when they fall into divers trials ;” and such is their deadness to the 
world, that they “‘are exceeding glad when men say all manner of evil 
of them falsely for Christ’s sake.” How desirable is such a state! Ané 
who, but the blessed above, can enjoy a happiness superior to him who 
can say, “ I am ready to be offered up. The sting of death is sin, and 
the strength of sin is the law ; but, O death, where is thy sting?” Not 
in my heart, since “the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, whe 
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. » Not in my mind, “ for te 
be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Now this peculiar happi nes: 
ye lose, so long as ye continue imperfect Christians. 3 

7. But supposing a Christian, who dies in a state of Christian imper. 
fection, can escape damnation, and make shift to get to heaven ; it is 
certain that he cannot go into the glorious mansion of perfect Christians, 
nor shine among the stars of the first magnitude. The wish of my soul 
is, that, if God’s wisdom has so ordered it, imperfect Christians may one 
day rank among perfect Jews, or perfect heathens. But even upon this 
supposition, what will they do with their indwelling sn? Fora perfe act 
Gentile, and a perfect Jew, are “ without guile” according to their light, 
as well as a perfect Christian. Lean not then to the doctrine of the 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 623 


continuance of indwelling sin till death. A doctrine this, on which 


_ a Socrates, or a Melchisedec, would be afraid to mention his heataen 


perfection, and eternal salvation. On the contrary, by Christian perfec- 


_ tion ye may rise to the brightest crowns of righteousness, and “ shine 
| like the sun in the kingdom of your Father.” O for a noble ambition 


to obtain one of the first seats in glory! O for a constant, evangelical 


| striving to have the most “abundant entrance ministered unto you into 
_ the kingdom of God!” O fora throne among these peculiarly redeemed 
| saints, who “ sing the new song, which none can learn” but themselves. 
_ It is not Christ’s to give those exalted thrones out of mere distinguishing 
|| grace: no, they may be forfeited; for they shall be given to those for 
_ whom they are prepared ; and they are prepared for them who, evan- 
_ gelically speaking, are worthy: “'They shall walk with me in white, for 


they are worthy,” says Christ: and they shall “sit at my right hand, 
and at my left in my kingdom,” who shall be worthy of that honour: 


| “For them that honour me,” says the Lord, “I will honour. Be- 
| hold I come quickly: my reward is with me, and I will render to 


every man according to his works.” And what reward, think ye, 


will Christ give you, O my dear, mistaken brethren, if he find you still 


passing jests upon the doctrine of Christian perfection, which he so 
Strongly recommends? Still pleading for the continuance of indwelling 


| sin, which he so greatly abhors ? 
| 8. Your whole system of indwelling sim and imputed perfection 


stands upon two of the most dangerous and false maxims whith were 
ever advanced. ‘The first, which hegets Antinomian presumption, runs 
thus: “Sin cannot destroy us either in this world or in the world to 
come.” And the second, which is productive of Antinomian despair, is, 
«Sin cannot be destroyed in this world.” O how hard is it for those 
who worship where these syren songs pass for sweet songs of Zion, not 
to be drawn into one of these fatal conclusions! ‘“ What need is there 
of attacking sin with so much eagerness, since, even in the name of the 
Lord, I cannot destroy it? And why should I resist it with so much 
‘watchfulness, since my eternal life and salvation are absolutely secured, 


| and the most poisonous cup of iniquity cannot destroy me, though I should 


‘drink of it every day for months or years?” If ye fondly think that ye can 
neither go backward into a sinful, cursed Egypt, nor yet go forward into 
a sinless, holy Canaan ; how natural will it be for you to say, “ Soul, 
take thine ease,” and rest awhile in this wilderness on the pillow of 
self-imputed perfection? O! how many are surprised by the midnight 
ery in this Laodicean rest! What numbers meet death with a Solifidian 


“Lord! Lord!” in their mouths, and with indwelling sin in their hearts! 


And how inexpressible will be our horror, if we perceive our want of 
holiness and Christian perfection, only when it will be too late to attain 
‘them! To conclude :— 

_ 9. Indwelling sin is not only “the sting of death,” but the very hell 


of hells, if I may use the expression: for a sinless saint in a local hell 


would dwell in a holy, loving God; and, of consequence, in a spiritual 
heaven: like Shadrach in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, he might 
have devouring flames curling about him; but, within him, he would 
still have the flame of Divine love, and the joy of a good conscience. 
But so much of indwelling sin as we carry about us, so much of indwell 


624 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


ing hell ; so much of the sting which pierces the damned; so much | 
the spiritual fire which will burn up the wicked ; so much of the ne 
dying worm which will prey upon them; so much of the dreadful in 
ment which will rack them; so much of Satan’s image which ~ 
frighten them; so much of the characteristic by which the devil’s ck 
dren shall be distinguished from the children of God; so much of t 
black mark whereby the goats shall be separated from the sheep. 
plead therefore for the continuance of indwelling sin, is no better the 
to plead for keeping in your hearts one of the sharpest stings of de ath 
and one of the hottest coals in hell-fire. On the other hand, to a 
Christian perfection is to have the last feature of Belial’s image e 
from your loving souls, the last bit of the sting of death extracted fron 
your composed breasts, and the last spark of hell-fire extinguished i 
your peaceful bosoms. It is to enter into the spiritual rest whic 
remains on earth for the people of God; a delightful rest this, where 
your soul will enjoy a calm in the midst of outward storm; and wher 
your spirit will no longer be tossed by the billows of swelling pride, dis 
satisfied avarice, pining envy, disappointed hopes, fruitless cares, dubiou 
anxiety, turbulent anger, fretting impatience, and racking unbelief. 
is to enjoy that even state of mind in which all things will work togethe 
for your good. There your love will bear its excellent fruits during th 
sharpest winter of affliction, as well as in the finest summer of pros. 
perity. There you will be more and more settled in peaceful humility, 
There you will continually grow in a holy familiarity with the Friend of 
penitent sinners, and your prospect of eternal felicity will brighten every 
day.* ; 
Innumerable are the advantages which established, perfect Christian 
have over carnal, unsettled believers, who continue sold under indwelling 
sin. And will ye despise those blessings to your dying day, O ye pre- 
judiced imperfectionists? Will ye secure to yourselves the contrary 
curses? Nay, will ye entail them upon the generations which are yel 
unborn, by continuing to print, preach, or argue for the continuance of 
indwelling sin, the capital wo belonging to the devil and his angels 
God forbid! We hope better things from you; not doubting but the erre 
of several of you lies chiefly in your judgment, and springs from a 
understanding of the question, rather than from a malicious opposition té 
that “holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” With plea 
sure we remember and follow St. Jude’s loving direction: “Of som ie 
[the simple hearted, who are seduced into Antinomianism] haye com: 
passion, making a difference; and others [the bigots and obstinat 
seducers, who wilfully shut their eyes against the truth] save with fea 
hating even the garment spotted by the flesh :” although they will ne 


“a 


be ashamed to plead for the continuance of a defiling fountain of car 

* If the arguments and expostulations contained in these sheets be rational 
and Scriptural, is not Mr. Wesley in the right when he says, that ‘‘all preache 
should make a point of preaching perfection to believers, constantly, stron 
and explicitly :” and that ‘all believers should mind this one thing, and con 
ally agonize for it?” And do not all the ministers, who preach against Christiat 
perfection, preach against the perfection of Christianity, oppose holiness, ere st 
the sanctifying truth as it isin Jesus, recommend an unscriptural purgatory, p 
for sin, instead of striving against it, and delude imperfect Christians into 
dicean ease? 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 625 


ae. in the very hearts of all God’s people. We are fully persuaded, 

v dear brethren, that we should wrong you, if we did not acknowledge 

t many of you have a sincere desire to be saved by Christ into all 

of heart and life ; and with regard to such imperfectionists, our 
complaint is, that their desire is “not according to knowledge.” 

If others of you, of a different stamp, should laugh at these pages, 
‘od (still producing banter instead of argument) should continue to say, 

Where are your perfect Christians? Show us but one and we will 

jeve your doctrine of perfection ;” I shall just put them in mind of 
Peter's awful prophecy: “ Know this first, that there shall come in 
Jast days scoffers walking after their own [indwelling] lusts, and 
. , Where is the promise of his spiritual coming [to make an end of 

I thoroughly to purge his floor, and to burn the chaff with unquench- 
fire?] For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they 
from the beginning :” all believers are still carnal and sold under 
_as well as father Paul. And if such mockers continue to display 
prejudice by such taunts, I shall take the liberty to show them 
ir own picture, by pointing at those prejudiced professors of old, who 
concerning the most perfect of all the perfect, “ What sign showest 

1ou, that we may receive thy doctrme? Come down from the cross, 
and \ we will believe.” O the folly and danger of such scoffs! “ Blessed 

he that sitteth not in the seat of the scornful,” and maketh much of 
them “that fear the Lord.” Yea, he is blessed next to them “that are 
“undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord, keep his testi- 
Monies, and seek him with their whole heart,” Psa. cxix, 1, 2. 

Should ye ask, “To what purpose do you make all this ado about 
Christian perfection ? Do those who maintain this doctrme live more 
holy and useful lives than other believers?” I answer :-— 

1. Every thing being equal, they undoubtedly do, if they hold not the 
truth in unrighteousness; for the best principles, when they are cor- 
dially embraced, will always produce the best practices. But alas! too 
many merely contend for Christian perfection in a speculative, sys- 
}tematical manner. They recommend it to others with their lips, as a 
| point of doctrine which makes a part of their religious system ; instead 
} of following after it with their hearts, as a blessing which they must 
: attain, if they will not be found as unprepared for judgment as the fool- 
lish virgins. These perfectionists are, so far, hypocrites; nor should 
their fatal inconsistency make us to despise the truth which they con- 
tend for, any more than the conduct of thousands, who contend for the 
uth of the Scriptures, while they live in full opposition to the Scriptures, 
jought to make us despise the Bible. 
|} 2. On the other hand, some gracious persons, (like the pious and 
| inconsistent Antinomians, whom I have described in the preceding 
Check::,) speak against Christiaz perfection with their lips, but cannot 
help following hard after it with their hearts; and while they do so, 
they sometimes attain the thing, although they continue to quarrel with 
the name. These perfect imperfectionists undoubtedly adorn the Gos- 
\pel of Christ far more than the imperfect, hypocritical perfectionists 
whom I have just described ; and God, who looks at the simplicity of 
the heart more than at the consistency of the judgment, pities their mis- 
lakes and accepts their works. 

Vox. IL 40 ; 


_ | 


626 . LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


But, (3.) Some there are, who both maintain doctrinally and prae 
tically the necessity of a perfect devotedness of ourselves to God. The 
hold the truth, and they hold it in wisdom and righteousness; their te 
pers and conduct enforce it, as well as their words and profession. A 
on this account, they have a great advantage over the two precedin 
classes of professors. Reason and revelation jointly crown the ortho 
doxy and faithfulness of these perfect perfectionists, who neither strength 
the hands of the wicked, nor excite the wonder of the judicious, by 
surdly pleading for indwelling sin with their lips, while they strive | 
work righteousness with their hands and hearts. If yeyeandidly wei 
this threefold distinction, I doubt not but ye will blame the irratio’ 
inconsistency of holy imperfectionists, condemn the immoral inconsi 
ency of unholy perfectionists, and agree with me, that the most exce 
Christian is a consistent, holy perfectionist. ; 

And now, my dear, mistakén brethren, take in good part these a 
solutions, expostulations, and reproofs; and give glory to God, by he 
lieving that he can and will yet save you to the uttermost from you 
evil tempers, if ye humbly come to him by Christ. Day and night as 
of him the new heart, which “keeps the commandments ;” and whe 
ye shall have received it, if you keep it with all diligence, sin shall m 
more pollute it, than it polluted our Lord’s soul, when he said, «If y 

_ keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love ; even as I have ke 
my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” Burn, in the mean 
time, the unhallowed pens, and bridle the rash tongues, with which y 
have pleaded for the continuance of sin till death. Honour us with # 
right hand of fellowship ; and like reconciled brethren let us at eve 
opportunity lovingly fall upon our knees together, to implore the hel 
of Him, who “can do far exceeding abundantly above all that we as 
or think.” Nor let us give him any rest, till he has perfected all ¢ 
souls in “the charity which rejoiceth in the truth” without prejudice, 
the obedience which keeps the commandments without reserve, and in th 
perseverance which finds that “sin keeping of them there is great reward 

Nothing but such a conduct as this can remoye the stumbling block 
which the contentions ye breed have laid in the way of a Deistical wor 
When the men, whom your mistakes have hardened, shall see that ye 
listen to Scripture and reason, who knows but their prejudices may su 
sside, and some of them may yet say, “See the good which arises 
friendly controversy! See how these Christians desire to be perfect 
in one! They now understand one another. Babylonish confusion is 
an end; evangelical truth prevails; and love, the most delicious fr 
of truth, visibly grows to Christian perfection.” God grant that, thro 
the concurrence of your candour, this may soon be the language of al 
those whom the bigotry of professors has confirmed in their prejudices 
against Christianity. ; a 

Should this plain address so far influence you, my dear brethren, as 
.to abate the force of your aversjon to the doctrine of pure love, or te 
stagger your unaccountable faith in a death purgatory ; and should ye 
seriously ask which is the way to Christian perfection, I entreat yo 
pass on to the next section, where, I hope, you will find a Scriptura 
.answer to some important questions, which, I trust, a few of you are by 
‘this time ready to propose. i) 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 627 


SECTION XIX. 


: An address to imperfect believers, who cordially embrace the doctrine 
of Christian perfection. 


Your regard for Scripture and reason, and your desire to answer the 
ends of God’s predestination, “‘ by being conformed to the image of his 
Son,” have happily kept or reclaimed you from the Antinomianism 
exposed in these sheets. 

Ye see the,absolute necessity of personally “fulfilling the law of 

Christ ;” your bosom glows with desire to “perfect holiness in the fear 
of God ;” and, far from blushing to be called perfectionists, ye openly 
assert that a perfect faith, productive of perfect love to God and man, 
is the pearl of great price, for which you are determined to sell all, and 
which (next to Christ) you will seek eatly and late, as the one thing 
needful for your spiritual and eternal welfare. Some directions, there- 
fore, about the manner of seeking this pearl, cannot but be acceptable 
to you, if they are Scriptural and rational; and such, I humbly trust, 
are those which follow :— 

1. First, if ye would attain an evangelically sinless perfection, let 
your full assent to the truth of that deep doctrine firmly stand upon the 
evangelical foundation of a precept and a promise. A precept without 

‘a promise would not sufficiently animate you; nor would a promise 

| without a precept properly bind you; but a Divine precept and a Divine 

‘promise form an unshaken foundation. Let then your faith deliberately 

rest her right foot upon these precepts :— 

_ “Hear, O Israel—thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 

and with all thy soul, and with all thy might, Deut. vi, 5. Thou shalt 

‘not hate thy neighbour in thy heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke 

‘thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. ‘Thou shalt not avenge, 

‘nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people: but thou shalt 

‘love thy neighbour as thyself. I am the Lord. Ye shall keep my 

statutes, Lev. xix, 17,18. And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy 

God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, 

and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 

With all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord God, and his 

statutes, which I command thee this day for thy geod, &¢? Circumcise 
therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff necked, Deut. 

x, 12, &c. Serve God with a perfect heart, and a willing mind: for 

the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth the imaginations of the 

thoughts,” 1 Chron. xxviii, 9. 

Should unbelief suggest that these are only Old Testament injunctions, 
trample upon the false suggestion, and rest the same foot of your faith 
upon the following New Testament precepts :—“ Think not that I am 
come to destroy the law, or the prophets. JI say unto you, Love your 
enemies; bless them that curse you; ao good to them that hate you, 

Gc, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in\heaven, &c. 
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even 
the publicans the same? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father 
which is in heaven is perfect, Matt. v, 17, 44, &c. If thou wilt enter 
into life, keep the commandments, Matt. xix, 17. Bear ye one another’s 


| 
| 


¢ 
— 
. 


628 . LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ, Gal. vi, 2. This is my com 

mandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you, John xv, 12, 
He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law: for this, Thou shalt ne 
commit adultery, &c. Thou shalt not covet, and if theré be any othe 
commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt loz 
thy neighbour as thyself.’ Love worketh no ill, &e, therefore, love is the 
fulfilling of the law, Rom. xiii, 8,10. This commandment we have 
from him, that he who loves God, love his brother also, 1 John iv, 21 
If ye fulfil the royal law, [how shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, 
do well. But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are 
convinced of the law as transgressors, James ii, 8, 9. Circumcision is 
nothing, uncircumcision is nothing [comparatively speaking ; ;] but [unde; 
Christ] the keeping of the commandments of God [is the one thin 
needful,] 1 Cor. vii, 19. For the end of the’ commandment is charit 
out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned 
1 Tim. i, 5. Though I have all faith, &c, and have not charity, I an 
nothing, 1 Cor. xill, 2. Whosoever shall keep the whole law [of liberty 
and yet offend in one point [in uncharitable respect of persons] he 1 
guilty of all, &c. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judge 
by the law of liberty,” [which requires perfect love, and therefore make 
no allowance for the least degree of uncharitableness,] James ii, 10, 12 

When the right foot of your faith stands on these-evangelical precept 
and proclamations, lest she should stagger for want of a promise evel 
way adequate to such weighty commandments, let her place her le 
foot upon the following promises, which are extracted from the Ol 
Testament: “’The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and th 
heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, Deut 
xxx, 6. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, at 
they shall be my people, and I will be their God, [in a new and peculia 
manner, | for they shall return unto me with their whole heart. 
shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. Aftei 
those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, an 
write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be m 
people, Jer. xxiv, 7; xxxi, 33. Then will I sprinkle clean water upa 
you, and ye shall be clean: from. all your filthiness and from all you 
idols will I cleanse you: a new heart also will I give you, and a ney 
spirit will I put within you: and | will take away the heart of ston 
out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will pu 
my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye sha 
keep my judgments and do them,” Ezek. xxxvi, 25-27. 

And let nobody suppose that the promises of the czreumeision of th 
heart, the cleansing, the clean water, and the Spirit, which are mentioned 
in these scriptures, and by which the hearts of believers are to be made 
new, and God’s law is to be so written therein, that they shall “ keep hi 
judgments and do them;” let none, I say, suppose that these gloriou: 
promises belong only to the Jews; for their full accomplishment peeu 
liarly refers to the Christian dispensation. Beside, if sprinklings of ti 
Spirit were sufficient, under the Jewishydispensation, to raise the plat 
of Jewish perfection in Jewish believers, how much more will the rey 
lation of “the horn of our salvation,” and the outpourings of the Spirit, 
raise the plant of Christian perfection in faithful, Christian believers! 


s 
= 4 
’ ; 
> 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 629 


And that this revelation of Christ in the Spirit as well as in the flesh, 
effusions of the water of life, these baptisms of fire which burn up 
he chal of sin, thoroughly purge God’s spiritual floor, save us from all 
our uncleanness, and deliver us from all our enemies; that these bless- 
, 1 say, are peculiarly promised to Christians, is demonstrable by the 
‘following cloud of New Testament declarations and promises :— 
_ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,—for he hath raised up a horn, 
of salvation for us,—as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, 
—that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve 
him without [unbelieving] fear, [that is, with perfect love,] in holiness 
d righteoushess before him all the days of our life, Luke i, 68, 75. 
ee: ed are the poor in spirit, who thirst after righteousness, for they 
Shall be filled, Matt. vy, 3, 6. If thou knewest the gift of God, &c, thou 
" wouldest have asked of him, and he would have giv en thee living water: 
and the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water 
“springing up to everlasting life, John iv, 10,14. Jesus stood and cried, 
Saying, Jf any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that 
_ believeth on me, [when I shall have ascended up on high to receive gifts 
- for men,] out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, [to cleanse 
“his soul, and keep it clean.] But this he spake of the Spirit, which 
they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not 
yet given, [in such a manner as to raise the plant of Christian perfec- 
tion,] because Jesus was not yet glorified,” [and his spiritual dispensa- 
tion was not yet fully opened,] John vii, 37, &c. Mr. Wesley, in his 
Plain Account of Christian Perfection, has published some excellent 
queries, and, proposed them to those who deny perfection to be attain- 
able in this life. They are close to the point, and therefore the two 
first attack the imperfectionists from the very ground on which I want 
you to stand. ‘Theyrun thus: “(1.) Has there not been a larger mea- 
sure of the Holy Spirit given under the Gospel than under the Jewish 
dispensation? If not, in what sense was the Spirit not given before 
Christ.was glorified? John vii, 39. (2.) Was that glory which followed 
| the sufferings of Christ, 1 Peter i, 11, an external glory, or an internal, 
_viz. the glory of holiness?” Always rest the doctrine of Christian per- 
fection on this Scriptural foundation, and it will stand as firm as revela- 
"tion itself. 
__ It is allowed on all sides that the dispensation of John the Baptist 
_ exceeded that of the other prophets, because it immediately introduced 
the Gospel of Christ, and because John was not only appointed to 
preach the baptism of repentance,” but also clearly to point out the 
_ very person of Christ, and to give knowledge of salvation to God’s people 
by the remission of sins, Luke i, 77; and nevertheless, John only pro- 
mised the blessing of the Spirit, which Christ bestowed when he had 
_ Teceived gifts for men. “TI indeed,” said John, “ baptize you with water 
unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I—he 
- shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” Matt. in, 44. 
_ Such is the importance of this promise, that it is particularly recorded 
not only by the three other evangelists, see Mark i, 8; Luke in, 16; 
and John i, 26, but also by our Lord himself, who said just before his 
_ ascension, “ John truly baptized with water, but = shall be baptized 
. with the Holy Ghost not many days hence,” Acts i, 5 


630 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


So capital is this promise of the Spirit’s stronger influences to raise 
the rare plant of Christian perfection, that when our Lord speaks of t 


does aniong the stars. Thus, Acts i, 4, “ Wait,” says hes “ for the 
promise of the Father, which ye have heard of me.” And again, 
Luke xxiv, 49, “ Behold I send the promise of my Father upon you.” 
Agreeably to this, St. Peter says, “Jesus being by the right hand ¢ 
God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy 
Ghost, he hath shed forth this :” he has begun abundantly to fulfil « that 
which was spoken by the Prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the 
last days, saith God, that I will pour out [bestow a more abundant mea. 
sure] of my Spirit upon all flesh. Therefore repent and be baptized 
[i. e. make an open profession of your faith] in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, for the remission of sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the 
Holy Ghost ; for the promise is unto you and to your children, and to 
as many as the Lord our God shall call” to enjoy the full blessings of 
the Christian dispensation, Acts ii, 17, 33, 38. This promise, when it 
is received in its fulness, is undoubtedly the greatest of all the “ exceed. 
ing great and precious promises, which are given to us, that by them 
you might be partakers of the Divine nature,” [that is, of pure love 
and unmixed holiness,| 2 Peter i, 4. Have therefore a peculiar eye to 
it, and to these deep words of our Lord: “I will ask the Father, and 
he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for 
ever, even the Spirit of truth [and power] whom the world knows not, 
&c, but ye know him, for he remaineth with you, and shall be in you, 
At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and 
I in you: for if any man [i. e. any believer] love me, he will keep my 
words, and my Father will love him, and we will come to hirn, and. 
make our abode with him,” John xiv, 15, 23: “ Which,” says Mr. 
Wesley, in his note on the place, “ implies such a large manifestation - 
of the Divine presence and love, that the former, in justification, is as 
nothing in comparison of it.” Agreeably to this the same judicious 
divine expresses himself thus in another of his publications: “These 
virtues [meekness, humility, and true resignation to God] are the only 
wedding garment; they are the lamps and vessels well furnished with 
oil. There is nothing that will do instead of them: they rust have 
their full and perfect work in you, or the soul can never be delivered 
from its fallen, wrathful state. There is no possibility of salvation but 
in this. And when the Lamb of God has brought forth his own meek- 
ness, &c, in our souls, then are our lamps trimmed, and our virgin hearts — 
made ready for the marriage feast. This marriage feast signifies the 
entrance into the highest state of union that can be between God and 
the soul in this life. ‘This birthday of the Spirit of love in our souls, 
whenever we attain it, will feast our souls with such peace and joy in 
God, as will blot out the remembrance of every thing that we called — 
peace or joy before.” 4 
To make you believe this important promise with more ardour, con- 
sider that our Lord spent some of his last moments in sealing it with — 
his powerful intercession. After having prayed the Father to sanctify 


his disciples through the truth, firmly embraced by their faith, and 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 631 


powerfully applied by his Spirit, he adds, “ Neither pray I for these 
alone, but for them who will believe on me through their word.” And 
what is it that our Lord asks for these believers ? Truly, what St. 
Paul asked for the imperfect believers at Corinth, “even their per- 
fection,” 2 Cor. xiii, 9. A state of soul this, which Christ describes 
thus :—“ That they all may be one, as thou Father art in’me, and I in 
thee, that they may be made one in us, &c, that they may be one 
as we are one: [| in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected 
in one, and that the world may know that thou hast loved them as 
thou hast loved me,” John xvii, 17, 23. Our Lord could not pray in 
yain: it is not to be supposed that the Scriptures are silent with respect 
to the effect of this solemn prayer, an answer to which was to give the 
world an idea of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, a 
specimen of the power which introduces believers into the state of 
Christian perfection; and therefore we read that on the day of pente- 
cost the kingdom of Satan was powerfully shaken, and, the kingdom of 
God, “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,” began to 
come with a new power: then were thousands wonderfully converted, 

and clearly justified: then was the kingdom of heaven taken by force ; 
and the love of Christ and of the brethren began to burn the chaff of 
selfishness and sin with a force which the world had never seen before : 
see Acts 1, 42, &c. Some time after, another glorious baptism, or 
capital outpouring of the Spirit, carried the disciples of Christ farther 
into the kingdom of grace which perfects believers in one. And there- 
fore we find that the account which St. Luke gives us of them after this 
second, capital manifestation of the Holy Spirit, in a great degree answers 
to our Lord’s prayer for their perfection. He had asked “that they all 
might be one, and that they might be one as the Father and he are one, 
and that they might be perfected in one,” John xvii, 17, &c. And now 
a fuller answer is given to his deep request. Take it in the words of 
an ispired historian :—‘“ And when they had prayed, the place was 
shaken where they were assembled together, and they were [once more] 
filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word with [still greater] 
boldness ; and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart, 
and of one soul; neither said any of them, that aught of the things 
which he possessed were his own; but they had all things common, 
&c, and great grace was upon them ali!” Acts iv, 31-33. “Who 
does not see in this account a specimen of that grace which our Lord 
had asked for believers, when he had prayed that his disciples, and 
those who would believe on him through their word, might be “ per- 
fected in one ?” 

It may be asked here, whether “ the multitude of them that believed,” 
in those happy days, were all perfect in love? I answer, that if pure 
love had cast out all selfishness, and sinful fear from their hearts, they 
were undoubtedly “ made perfect in love :” but as God does not usually 
remove the plague of indwelling sin till it has been discovered and 
lamented ; and as we find, in the two next chapters, an account of the 
guile of Ananias and his wife, and of the partiality or selfish murmuring 
of some believers, it seems that those chiefly, who before were strong in 
the grace of their dispensation, arose then into sinless fathers; and 
that the first love of other believers, through the peculiar blessing of 


632 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


Christ upon his infant Church, was so bright and powerful for a time, — 
that little children had, or seemed to have, the strength of young men 
and young men the grace of fathers. And, in this case, the account 
which St. Luke gives of the primitive believers ought to be taken with 
some restriction. Thus, while many of them were perfect, in love 
many might have the imperfection of their love only covered over by a 
land flood of peace and joy in believing. And, in this case, what is said 
of their being “all of one heart and mind, and of their having all things 
common,” &c, may only mean that the harmony of love had not ye 
been broken, and that none had yet betrayed any of the uncharitable 
ness for which Christians in after ages became so conspicuous. With 
respect to the “great grace which was upon them all,” this does not 
necessarily mean that they were all equally strong in grace; for grea 
unity and happiness may rest upon a whole family where the difference 
between a father, a young man, and a child, continues to subsist. 
However, it is not improbable that God, to open the dispensation of the 
Spirit, in a manner which might fix the attention of all ages upon its 
importance and glory, permitted the whole body of believers to take ai 
extraordinary turn together into the Canaan of perfect love, and 
show the world the admirable fruit which grows there, as the spies sent 
by Joshua took a turn into the good land of promise before they were 
settled in it, and brought from thence the bunch of grapes which 
astonished and spirited up the Israelites, who had not yet crossed Jordan. 
Upon the whole, it is, I think, undeniable, from the four first chapter 
of the Acts, that a peculiar power of the Spirit is bestowed upon believers 
under the Gospel of Christ ; that this power, through faith on our part, 
can operate the most sudden and surprising change in our souls; and 
that when our faith shall fully embrace the promise of full sanctification, 
or of a complete “circumcision of the heart in the Spirit,” the Holy 
Ghost, who kindled so much love on the day of pentecost, that all the 
primitive believers loved or seemed to love each other perfectly, will not 
fail to help us to love one another without sinful self seeking; and as 
soon as we do so, “ God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us,” 
1 John iv, 12; John xiv, 23. rf 
Should you "ask, how many baptisms, or effusions of the sanctifying 
Spirit are necessary to cleanse a believer from all sin, and to kindle his 
soul into perfect love; -I reply, that the effect of a sanetifying truth 
depending upon the ardour of the faith with which that truth is em. 
braced, and upon the power of the Spirit with which it is applie 
should betray a want of modesty if I brought the operations of hes 
Holy Ghost, and the energy of faith, under a rule which is not expressly 
laid down in the Scriptures. If you ask your physician how many 
doses of physic you must take before all the erudities of your stomac 
can be carried off, and your appetite perfectly restored; he woul 
probably answer you, that this depends upon the nature of those 
crudities, the strength of the medicine, and the manner in which your 
constitution will allow it to operate ; and that in general you must repeat 
the dose, as you can bear, till the remedy has fully answered the desired 
end. I return a similar answer: if one powerful baptism of the Spi it 
“seal you unto the day of redemption, and cleanse you from all [moral] © 
filthiness,” so much the better. If two or more be necessary, the Lore 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 633 


eam repeat them: “ His arm is not shortened, that it cannot save ;” nor 
is his promise of the Spirit stinted: he says, in general, “« Whosoever 
will, let him come and take of the water of life freely. If you, being 
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more 
will your heavenly Father [who is goodness itself ] give his Holy [sancti- 
fying] Spirit to them that ask him!” I may, however, venture to say, 
im general, that before we can rank among perfect Christians, we must 
receive so much of the truth and Spirit of Christ by faith, as to have the 
pure love of God and man shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy 
Ghost given unto us, and to be filled with the meek and lowly mind 
which was in Christ. And if one outpouring of the Spirit, one bright 
manifestation of the sanctifying truth, so empties us of self, as to fill us 
with the mind of Christ, and with pure love, we are undoubtedly 
Christians in the full sense of the word. From the ground of my 
soul I therefore subscribe to the answer which a great divine makes to 
the following objection :— 

_ “But some who are newly justified, do come up to this [Christian 
perfection :] what then will you say to these?” Mr. Wesley says with 
great propriety: “If they really do, I will say, they are sanctified, 
saved from sin in that moment ; and that they never need lose what God 
has given, or feel sin any more. But certainly this is an exempt’case. 
It is otherwise with the generality of those that are justified. They 
feel in themselves, more or less, pride, anger, self will, and a heart bent 


_to backslidmg. And till they have gradually mortified these, they are 


not fully renewed in love. God usually gives a considerable time for 
men to receive light, to grow in grace, to do and to suffer his will 
before they are either justified or sanctified. But he does not invari- 
ably adhere to this. Sometimes he ‘cuts short his work.’ He does 
the work of many years in a few weeks; perhaps in a week, a day, an 


hour. He justifies, or sanctifies both those who have done or suffered 


thing, and who have not had time for a gradual growth either in light 
é grace. And may he not ‘do what he will with his own? Is thine 
eye evil, because he is good? Jt need not therefore be proved by forty 
texts of Scripture, either that most men are perfected in love at last, or 
that there is a gradual work of God in the soul; and that, generally 
speaking, it is a long time, even many years, before sin is destroyed. 
All this we know. But we know, likewise, that God may, with man’s 
good leave, ‘cut short his work,’ in whatever degree he pleases, and 
do the usual work of many years in a moment. He does so in a great 
many instances. And yet there is a gradual work both before and 
afier that moment. So that one may affirm, the work is gradual ; 
another, it is instantaneous, without any manner of contradiction.” 
(Plain Account, page 115, &c.) Page 155, the same eminent Divine 


 expiains himself more fully thus: “Jt [Christian perfection] is con- 


stantly preceded and followed by a gradual work. But is it in itself 
instantaneous or not? In examining this, let us go on step by step. 
An instantaneous change has been wrought in some believers. None 
can deny this. Since that change, they enjoy perfect love. They feel 
this, and this alone. They rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in 
every thing give thanks. Now this is all that I mean by perfection. 


Therefore these are witnesses of the perfection which I preach. ‘But 
. 


634 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


in some this change was not instantaneous.’ They did not percetve 
the instant when it was wrought; it is often difficult to perceive the 
instant when a man dies. Yet there is an instant in which life ceases, 
And if ever sin ceases, there must be a last moment of its existence, 
and a first moment of our deliverance from it. ‘ But if they have 
love now, they will lose it.” They may; but they need not. «4 
whether they do or no, they have it now; they now experience what 
we teach. They now are all love. They now rejoice, pray, and praise 
without ceasing. ‘ However, sin is only suspended in them; it is not 
destroyed.’ Call it which you please. They are all love today; 
they take no thought for the morrow.” To return :— 

2. When you firmly assent to the truth of the precepts and promises. 
on which the doctrine of Chuistian perfection is founded; when yot 
understand the meaning of these scriptures, “ Sanctify them through 
thy truth, thy word is truth. I will send the Comforter, [the Spirit of 
truth and holiness,] unto you; God hath chosen you to [eternal] salvas 
tion through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth :” when 
you see that the way to Christian perfection is by the word of the Gos. 
pel of Christ, by faith, and by the Spirit of God; in the next place, ge 
tolerably clear ideas of this perfection. This is absolutely necessary 
If you will hit a mark, you must know where it is, Some people aim 
at Christian perfection; but mistaking it for angelical perfection, the 
shoot above the mark, miss it, and then peevishly give up their hopes 
Others place the mark as much too low; hence it is that you heat 
them profess to have attained Christian perfection, when they have no 
so much as attained the mental serenity of a philosopher, or the candou 
of a good-natured, conscientious heathen. In the preceding pages, if 
I am not mistaken, the mark is fixed according to the rules of Scrip. 
tural moderation. | It is not placed so high, as to make you despair of 
hitting it, if you do your best in an evangelical manner ; nor yet so low, 
as to allow you to presume that you can reach it, without exerting all 
your abilities to the uttermost, in due subordination to the efficacy o 
Jesus’ blood, and the Spirit’s sanctifying influences. 

3. Should you ask, “‘ Which is the way to Christian perfection? Shall 
we go on to it by internal stillness, agreeably to this direction of Moses 
and David? ‘The Lord will fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace; 
stand still and see the salvation of God. Be still and know that I am 
God. Stand in awe and sin not; commune with your own heart upon 
your bed, and be still.” Or shall we press after it by an internal wrest. 
ling, according to these commands of Christ? ‘Strive to enter in at 
the strait gate: the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the vie 
lent take it by force.’ ” “&e. 

According to the evangelical balance of the doctrines of free race 
and free will, I answer, that the way to perfection is by the due combi- 
nation of prevenient, assisting free grace; and of submissive, assisted 
free will. Antinomian stillness, therefore, which says that free g 


not all, is not the way. Join. these two partial systems, allowing fi ee 

grace the lead and high pre-eminence which it so justly claims, and 

you have the balance of the two Gospel axioms. You do justice to” 

the doctrines of mercy and justice, of free grace and free will, » 
°. 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. : 635 


Divine faithfulness in keeping the covenant of grace, and of human 
faithfulness in laying hold on that covenant, and keeping within its 
gounds : in short, you have the Scripture method of waiting upon God, 
ich Mr. Wesley describes thus :— 
Restless, resign’d, for God I wait, 
‘ For God my vehement soul stands still. 
To understand these lines, consider that faith, like the Virgin Mary, 
ernately a receiver and a bestower : first, it passively receives the 
ation of Divine grace, saying, “ Behold the handmaid of the 
: let it be done to me according to thy word ;” and then it actively 
forth its heavenly fruit with earnest labour. “God worketh mn 
to will and to do,” says St. Paul: here he describes the passive 
office of faith, which submits to, and acequiesces in every dispensation 
Noperation. “Therefore work out your salyation with fear and 
” and, of consequence, with haste, diligence, ardour, and faith- 
fulness : here the apostle describes ihe active office of that mother 
which carefully lays out the talent she has already received. 
Would you then wait aright for Christian perfection ? Impartially ad- 
Mit the Gospel axioms, and faithfully reduce them to practice. In 
order to this, let them meet in your hearts, as the two legs of a pair of 
passes meet in the rivet, which makes them one compounded i in- 
_-strument. Let your faith in the doctrine of free grace and Christ’s 
righteousness fix your mind upon God as you fix one of the legs of 
your compasses immovably in the centre of the circle which you are 
about to draw: so shall you “stand still,” according to the first text 
produced in the question, and then let your faith m the doctrine of free 
will, and evangelical obedience, make you steadily run the circle of duty 
round that firm centre: so shall you imitate the other leg of the com- 
passes, which evenly moves around the centre, and traces the circum- 
ference of a perfect circle. By this activity, subordinate to grace, you 
| will “take the kingdom of heaven by force.” When your heart quietly 
| rests in God by faith, as it steadily acts the part of a passive receiver, 
| it resembles the leg of the compasses which rests in the centre of the 
| eircle ; and then the poet’s expressions, “ restless—resigned,” describe 
| its fixedness in God. But when your heart swifily moves toward God 
Dy faith, as it acts the part of a diligent worker, when your ardent soul 
follows after God as a thirsty deer does after the water brooks, it may 
be compared to the leg of the compasses which traces the cireumfer- 
| ence of the circle; and then these words of the poet, “restless and 
= properly belong to it. To go on steadily to perfection, you 


must therefore endeavour steadily to believe. according to the doctrine 

of the first Gospel axiom; and (as there is opportunity) diligently to 
according to the doctrine of the second; and the moment your 
Is steadily fixed in God as in your centre, and your obedience 

} moves in the circle of duty from the rest and power which you 

: find in that centre you have attained, you are made perfect in the faith 

} 

i 


which works by love. Your humble faith saves you from Pharisaism, 
your obedient love from Antinomianism, and both, in due subordination 
to Christ, constitute you a just man made perfect according to your 
ion. 
4, Another question has also puzzled many sincere perfectionists ; and 
. 


636 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM 


the solution of it may remove a considerable hinderance out af 
way :—Is Christian perfection,” say they, “to be anstantane 
brought down to us, or are we gradually to grow up to it? be 
made perfect in love by a habit of holiness suddenly infused into’us, or 
by acts of feeble faith and feeble love so frequently repeated as to be- 
come strong, habitual, and evangelically natural to us, according to 
well-known maxim, A strong habit is a second nature?” 7 
Both ways are good; and instances of some believers gradually per. 
fected, and of others [comparatively speaking] znstantaneously fixed i in 
perfect love, might probably be produced, if we were acquainted with 
the experiences “of all those who have died in a state of evangelical per 
fection. It may be with the root of sin, as it is with its fruit: some souls 
parley many years before they can be persuaded tq give up all their 
outward sins, and others part with them, as it were, instantaneously, 
You may compare the former to those besieged towns which make a 
long resistance, or to those mothers who go through a tedious and 
lingering labour : and the latter resemble those fortresses which are sur- 
prised and carried by storm ; or those women who are delivered almost 
as soon as labour comes upon them. ‘Travellers inform us that vegeta. 
tion is so quick and powerful in some warm climates, that the seeds of 
some vegetables yield a salad in iess than twenty-four hours. Should a 
northern philosopher say, “Impossible!” and should an English gare 
dener exclaim against such mushroom sallad, they would only expose 
their prejudices, as do those who decry instantaneous justification, or 
mock at the possibility of the instantaneous destruction of indwelling sin, 
For where is the absurdity of this doctrine? If the light of a candle 
brought into a dark room can instantly expel the darkness ; and if, upon 
opening your shutters at noon, your gloomy apartment can instantane- 
ously be filled with meridian light; why may not the instantaneous 
rending of the veil.of unbelief, or the sudden and full opening of your 
faith, instantly fill your soul with the light of truth, and the fire of love; 
supposing the Sun of righteousness arise upon you with powerful heal- 
ing in his wings? May not the Sanctifier descend upon your waiting 
soul, as quickly as the Spirit descended,upon your Lord at his baptism 
Did it not descend “ as a dove,” that is, with the soft motion of a dove, 
which swiftly shoots down, and instantly lights? A good man said once, 
with truth, “A mote is little, when it is compared with the sun; but I 
am far less before God.” Alluding to this comparison, I ask, If the sun 
could instantly kindle a mote ; nay, if a burning glass can in a moment 
calcine a bone, and turn a stone to lime; and if the dim flame of a candle 
can in the twinkling of an eye destroy the flymg insect which comes 
within its sphere, how unscriptural and irrational is it to suppose that, 
when God fully baptizes a soul with his sanctifying Spirit and with the 
celestial fire of his love, he cannot in an instant destroy the man of sin, 
burn up the chaff of corruption, melt the heart of stone into a heart 
of flesh, and kindle the believing soul into pure, seraphic love ! ~ 
An appeal to parallel cases may throw some light upon the question 
which I answer. If you were sick, and asked of God the perfect reco-— 
very of your health, how would you look for it? Would you expect to” 
have your strength restored to you at once, without any external means,” 
2s the lepers who were instantly cleansed; and as the paralytic, who at 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 637 


Lord’s word took up the bed upon which he lay, and carried it away 
his shoulders? Or by using some external means of a slower opera- 
as the “ ten lepers” did, who were more “ gradually cleansed as they 
to show themselves to the priests?’ Or as King Hezekiah, whose 

but equally sure recovery, was owing to God’s blessing upon 
| i poultice of figs prescribed by isitah ? Again: if you were blind, 
| and besought the Lord to give you perfect human sight, how should 
| you wait for it? As Bartimeus, whose eyes were opened in an instant ? 

as the man who received his sight by degrees? At first he saw 
“nothing ; by and by he confusedly discovered the objects before him, 
| but at last he saw all things clearly. Would ye not earnestly wait for 
| am answer to your prayers now, leaving to Divine wisdom the particular 
| manner of your recovery? And why should ye not go and do likewise 
with respect to the dreadful disorder which we call indwelling sin? 
heed If our hearts be purified by faith, as the Scriptures expressly testify 
_ if the faith which peculiarly purifies the hearts of Christians be a faith 
“in “the promise of the Father,” which promise was made by the Son 
and directly points at a peculiar effusion of the Holy Ghost, the purifier 
| of spirits; if we may believe in a moment; and if God may, in a 
| moment, seal our sanctifying faith by sending us a fulness of his sancti- 
fying Spirit: if this, I say, be the case, does it not follow, that to deny 
_ the possibility of the instantaneous destruction of sin, is to deny, con- 
trary to Scripture and matter of fact, that we can make an instantaneous 
act of faith in the sanctifying promise of the Father, and in the all- 
cleansing blood of the Son, and that God can seal that act by the instan- 
taneous operation of his Spirit? which St. Paul calls the “ circumcision 
of the heart in [or by] the Spint,” according to the Lord’s ancient pro- 
mise, “I will circumcise thy heart, to love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart.” Where is the absurdity of believing that “the God of all 
grace” can give an answer to the poet’s rational ‘and evangelical 
_ request ? 


Open my faith’s interior eye; 
Display thy glory from above: 

And sinful self shall sink and die, 
Lost in astonishment and love. 


If a momentary display of Christ’s bodily glory could, in an instant, 
turn Saul, the blaspheming, bloody persecutor, into Paul, the praying, 
gentle apostle ; if a sudden sight of Christ’s hands could in a moment 
Toot up from Thomas” heart that detestable resolution, “I will not be- 
lieve,” and produce that deep confession of faith, “ My Lord and my 
God !” what cannot the display of Christ’s spiritual glory operate in a 
believing soul, to which he manifests himself “ according to that power 
whereby he is able to subdue al] things to himself?” Again : if,Christ’s 
body could in an instant become so glorious on the mount, that his very 
garments partook of the sudden irradiation, became not only free from 
eyery spot, but also “white as the light, shining exceeding white as 
‘snow; so as no fuller on the earth could whiten them ;” ‘and if our 
bodies “shall be changed, if this corruptible shall put on incorruption, 
and if this mortal shall put on immortality, in a moment, in the twinkling 
of an eye, at the last trump ;” why may not our believing souls, when 

hey fully submit to God’s terms, be fully changed—fully turned from 


638 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


the power of Satan unto God? When the Holy Ghost says, “ Now i 
the day of salvation,” does he exclude salvation from heart iniquity? If 
Christ now deserves fully the name of Jesus, “ because he fully saves” 
his believing people from their sins;” and if now the Gospel trumpet 
sounds, and sinners arise from the dead, why should we not, upon the — 
performance of the condition, be ‘changed in a moment from indwelling | 
sin to indwelling holiness? Why should we not pass, in the twinkling © 
of an eye, or in a short time, from indwelling death, to indwelling life? 
This is not all. If you deny the possibility of a quick destruction of — 
indwelling sin, you send to hell, or to some unscriptural purgatory, not — 
only the dying thief, but also all those martyrs who suddenly embraced 
the Christian faith, and were instantly put to death by bloody persecutors, 
for confessing the faith which they had just embraced. And if you 
allow that God may “cut his work short in righteousness” in such case, _ 
why not in other cases? Why not, especially “when a believer confesses 
his indwelling sin, ardently prays Christ would, and sincerely believes 
that Christ can, “ now cleanse him from all unrighteousness ?” 
Nobody is so apt to laugh at the instantaneous destruction of sin as 
the Calvinists, and yet (such is the inconsistency which characterizes 
some men!) their doctrine of purgatory is built upon it. For, if you 
credit them, all dying believers have a nature which is still morally cor. 
rupted, and a heart which is yet desperately wicked. These believers, 
still full of indwelling sin, instantaneously breathe out their last, and, 
without any peculiar act of faith, without any peculiar outpouring of the 
sanctifying Spirit, corruption is instantaneously gone. The indwelling 
“man of sin” has passed through the Geneva purgatory, he is entirely 
consumed! And behold! the souls which would not hear of the instan- 
taneous act of a sanctifying faith, which receives the indwelling Spirit 
of holiness—the souls which pleaded hard for the continuance of in- 
dwelling sin, are now completely sinless; and, in the twinkling of an 
eye, they appear in the third heaven among the spirits of just Christians 
made perfect in love! Such is the doctrine of our opponents: and yet 
they think it incredible that God should do for us, while we pray in faith, 
what they suppose death will do for them, when they lie in his cold arms, 
perhaps delirious or senseless! 
On the other hand, to deny that imperfect believers may and do 
gradually grow in grace, and of course that the remains of their sins 
may, and do gradually decay, is as absurd as to’deny that God waters 
the earth by daily dews, as well as by thunder showers: it is as ridicu- 
lous as to assert that nobody is carried off by lingering disorders, but 
that all men die suddenly or a few hours after they are taken ill. 
I use these comparisons about death, to throw some light upon the — 
question which I solve, and not to insinuate that the decay and destruc. 
tion of sin run parallel with the decay and dissolution of the body, and 
that of course sin must end with our bodily life. Were I to admit this 
unscriptural tenet, I should build again what I have all along endeavoured ~ 
to destroy, and, as I love consistency, I should promise eternal salvation 
to all unbelievers; for unbelievers, I presume, will die, i. e. will go into” 
the Geneva purgatory, as well as believers. Nor do I see why death — 
‘ should not be able to destroy the van and the main body of sin’s forces, 
if it can so readily cut the rear (the remains of sin) in pieces. 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 639 


_ From ‘he preceding observations it appears, that believers generally 
"go on to Christian perfection, as the disciples went to the other side of 
| the sea of Galilee. They toiled some time very hard, and with little 
| success. But after they had “rowed about twenty-five, or thirty fur- 
longs, they saw Jesus walking on the sea. He said to them, it is I, be 
) noi afraid : : then they willingly received him into the ship, and imme- 
| diately the ship was at the land whither they went.” Just so, we toil 
“till our faith discovers Christ in the promise, and welcomes him into our 
hearts; and such is the effect of his presence, that immediately we 
ive at the land of perfection. Or, to use another illustration, God 
to believers, “Go to the Canaan of perfect love: arise, why do ye 
1? Wash away the remains of sin, calling, i. e. believing, on the 
e of the Lord.” And if they submit to the obedience of faith, he 
om with them as he did with the Evangelist Philip, to whom he had 
- said, “ Arise and go toward the south.” For when they “arise and run,’ 
aga did, “the Spirit of the Lord takes” them, as he did the evan- 
Pe eclist ; and they are found in the New Jerusalem, as “Philip was found 
ee Azotus.” They “dwell m God, [or in perfect love,] and God [or 
perfect love] dwells in them.” 
) Hence it follows, that the most evangelical method of following after 
- the perfection to which we are immediately called, is that of seeking it 
now, by endeavouring fully to lay hold on the promise of that perfection 
| through faith, just as if our repeated acts of obedience could never help 
us forward. But, in the meantime, we should do the works of faith, and 
repeat our internal and external acts of obedience with as much earnest- 
ness and faithfulness, according to our present power, as if we were sure 
to enter into rest merely by a diligent use of our talents, and a faithful 
exertion of the powers which Divine grace has bestowed upon us. If 
| we do not attend to the first of these directions, we shall seek to be 
sanctified by works like the Pharisees; and if we disregard the second, 
we shall fall into Solifidian stoth with the Antinomians. 

This double direction is founded upon the connection of the two Gos- 
pel axioms. If the second axiom, which implies the doctrine of free 
will, were false, I would only say, “ Be still, or rather do nothing ; free 
' grace alone will do all in you and for you.” But as this axiom is as 
- true as the first, J must add, “Strive in humble subordination to free 
grace: for Christ-saith, ‘To him that hath’ initiating grace to purpose, 
'*more grace shall be given, and he shall have abundance: his faith- 
ful and equitable Benefactor will give him the reward of perfecting 


fia 
of 


| 5. Beware therefore of unscriptural refinements. Set out for the 
*Canaan of perfect love with a firm resolution to labour for the rest which 

_ remains on earth for the people of God. Some good, mistaken men, 
“wise above what is written. and fond of striking out paths which were 
_ unknown to the apostles,—new paths marked out by voluntary humility, 
| and leading to Antinomianism: some people of that stamp, I say, have 
. made it their business, from the days of heated Augustine, to decry 
_ making resolutions. They represent this practice as: a branch of what 
_ they are pleased to call legality. They insinuate that it is utterly incon- 
_ sistent with the knowledge of our inconstancy and weakness: in a word, 
_ they frighten us from the first step to Christian perfection; from an 


SS ee 


640 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


humble evangelical determination to run till we reach the prize, or, 
you please, to go down till we come to the lowest place. It may 
be amiss to point out the ground of their mistake. Once they b - 
the balance of the Gospel axioms by leaning too much toward free w 
and by not laying their first and principal stress upon free grace. a 
to bring them to the evangelical mean, refused his blessing to their un- 
evangelical willing and running; hence it is that their self-righteou 
resolutions started aside like a broken bow. When they found out their 
mistake, instead of coming back to the line of moderation, they fled to 
the other,extreme. Casting all their weights into the scale of free 
grace, they absurdly formed a resolution never to form a resolution ; 
and, determining not to throw one determination into the scale of ee 
will, they began to draw all the believers they met with into the a 
of a slothful quietism and Laodicean stillness. 2 
You will never steadily go on to perfection, unless you get over this 
mistake. Let the imperfectionists laugh at you for making humble 
resolutions ; but go on “steadfastly purposing to lead a new life,” as 
says our Church; and in order to this, “steadfastly purpose” to get 
new heart in the full sense of the word: for so long as your heart « 
tinues partly wnrenewed, your life will be partly unfoly. And, therefore, 
St. James justly observes that “if any man offend not in word, he is a 
perfect man,” he loves God with all his heart, his heart is fully renewed; 
it being impossible that a heart, still tainted in part with vanity and guile, 
should always dictate the words of sincerity and love. Your good reso- 
lutions need not fail: nor will they fail, if, under a due sense of the 
fickleness and helplessness of your unassisted free will, you properly 
depend upon God’s faithfulness and assistance. However, should they 
fail, as they probably will do more than once, be not discouraged, but 
repent, search out the cause, and, in the strength of free grace, let your 
assisted free will renew your evangelical purpose, till the Lord seals it 
with his mighty fiat, and says, “ Let it be done to thee according to thy 
resolving faith.” It is much better to be laughed at as “poor creatures, 
who know nothing of themselves,” than to be deluded as foolish virgins, 
who. fondly imagine that their vessels are full of imputed oil. Take 
therefore the sword of the Spirit, and boldly cut this dangerous snare im 
pieces. Conscious of your impotence, and yet laying out your talent of 
free will, say with the prodigal son, “I will arise and go to my father:” 
say with David, “I will love thee, O Lord my God: I wili behold thy 
face in righteousness: I am purposed that my mouth shall not trans- 
gress: I will keep it, as it were, with a bridle: I have said that I would 
keep thy word: the proud,” and they who are humble in an unscriptural 
way, “have had me exceedingly in derision, but I will keep thy precepts 
with my whole heart. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will 
keep thy righteous judgments :” say with St. Paul, “I am determin 
rot to know any thing save Jesus, and him crucified.” And with Jac 
“TJ will not let thee go, unless thou bless me!” And, to sum up all 
resolutions in one, if you are a member of the Church of England, 
«I have engaged to renounce all the vanities of this wicked world, all 
the sinful lusts of the flesh, and all the works of the devil: to believe a 
the articles of the Christian faith ; and to keep God’s conmvaanitiaslll 
sll the days of my life ;” that is, I have most solemnly resolved to be : a 


¢ 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 641 


t.Christian. And this resolution I have publicly sealed by receiv- 
the two sacraments upon it: baptism, after my parents and sponsors 
laid me under this blessed vow: and the Lord’s Supper, after I had 
‘personally ratified, in the bishop’s presence, what they had done. Nor 
do I only think that I am bound to keep this vow; but “ by God’s grace 
‘so I will; and J heartily thank our heavenly Father, that he has called 
me to this state of salvation [and Christian perfection ;] and I pray unto 
to give me his grace, that I may not only attain it, but also continue 

‘int the same unto my. life’s end.” (Church Catechism. ) 

_ “Much diligence,” says Kempis, “is necessary to him that will profit 
‘much. If he who firmly purposeth, often faileth, what shall he do who 
‘seldom or feebly purposeth any thing?” But, I say it again and again, 
do not lean upon your free will and good purposes, so as to encroach 
upon the glorious pre-eminence of free grace. Let the first Gospel 
axiom stand invariably im its honourable place. Lay your principal 
stress upon Divine mercy, and say with the good man, whom I have just 
quoted, “Help me, O Lord God, in ‘thy holy service, and grant that I 
May now this day begin perfectly.” 

__In following this method, ye will ny the two Gospel axioms justice : 
ye will so depend upon God’s free grace as not to fall into Pharisaic 
Tunning: and ye will so exert your own free will as not to slide into 
Antinomian sloth. Your course lies exactly between these rocks. To 
pass these perilous straits, your resolving heart must acquire a heavenly 
polarity. Through the spiritually magnetic touch of Christ, the corner 
‘stone, your soul must learn to point toward faith and works, or, if you 
please, toward a due submission to free grace, and a due exertion of free 
will, as the opposite ends of the needle of a compass point toward the 
north and the south. 

6. From this direction flows the following advice. Resolve to be 
perfect in yourselves, but not of yourselves: the Antinomians boast that 
they are perfect only in their heavenly representative. Christ was filled 
with perfect humility and love: they are perfect in his person: they 
need not a perfection of humble love in themselves. To avoid their 
error, be perfect in ‘yourselves and not in another: let your perfection 
of humility and love be inherent; let it dwell in you. Let it fill your 
|own heart and influence your own life: so shall you avoid the delusions 

‘of the virgins, who give you to understand that the oil of their perfection 
lis all contained in the sacred vessel which formerly hung on the cross, 
‘and therefore their salvation is finished, they have oil enough in that rich 
vessel; manna enough and to spare in that golden pot. Christ’s heart was 
perfect, and therefore theirs may safely remain imperfect, yea, full of in- 
dwelling sin, till death, the messenger of the bridegroom, come to cleanse 
7a, and fill them with perfect love at the midnight cry! Delusive hope! 
| Can. any thing be more absurd than for a sapless, dry branch to fancy 
at it has sap and moisture enough in the vine which ‘it cumbers? or for 
an impenitent adulterer to boast that “in the Lord he has” chastity and 
usness? Where did Christ ever say, “ Have salt in another ?” 
he not say, “ Take heed, that ye be not deceived! Have salt in 
lyes?” Mark ix, 50. Does he not impute the destruction of stony 
d hearers to their “not having root in themselves?” Matt. xiii, 21. 
if it was the patient man’s comfort, that “the root of the matter was 
. Vox HH. 41 


- 
i‘ ’ s ‘ 
e * 


642 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. Sa 


found in him,” is it not deplorable to hear modern believers say, with 
any explanatory clause, that they have nothing but sin in themselves 
But is it enough to have “the root in ourselves?” © Must we not als 
have the fruit,—yea, “be filled with the fruits of righteousness? 
Phil. i, 11. Is it not St. Peter’s doctrine, where he says, “ If these thing 
be in you, and abound, ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in 
knowledge of Christ?” 2 Peter i, 8. And is it not that of David, wher 
he prays, “Create in me a clean heart,” &c? Away, then, with a 
Antinomian refinements! And if, with St. Paul, you will have salvatio 
and rejoicing in yourselves, and not in another, make sure of holines 
and perfection “in yourselves, and not in another.” 

But while you endeavour to avoid the snare of the iadlidoanisial d 
not run into that of the Pharisees, who will have their perfection 6 
themselves ; and therefore, by their own unevangelical efforts, self-cor 
certed willings, and self-prescribed runnings, endeavour to “raise spam 
of their own kindling, and to warm themselves” by their own painte 
fires and fruitless agitations. Feel your impotence. Own that “1 
man has quickened [and perfected] his own soul.” Be contented 
invite, receive, and welcome the light of life : but never attempt to fort 
or to engross it. It is your duty to wait for the morning light, and | 
rejoice when it visits you: but if you grow so self conceited = te say 
“J will create a sun: let there be light:” or if, when the ° isi 
your eyes you say, “I will bear a stock of light: I will so fill x eye 
with light to-day, that to-morrow I shall be almost able to do my woi 
without the sun, or at least without a constant dependence upon | 
beams ;” would ye not betray a species of self-deifying idolatry an 
Satanical pride? If our Lord himself, as “Son of man,” would not ha 
one grain of human goodness himself; if he said, “ Why callest thou m 
good? ‘There is none good [self good, or good of himself | but God: 
who can wonder enough at those proud Christians who claim some sé 
originated goodness ; boasting of what they have received, as if th 
had not received it: or using what they have received without an hu 
tble sense of their constant dependence upon their heavenly Benefactor 
‘To avoid this horrid delusion of the Pharisees, learn to see, to feel, a 
to acknowledge, that of the Father, through the Son, and by the He 
‘Ghost, are all your urim and thummim, your lights and perfection 
and while the Lord says, “From me is thy fruit found,” Hosea xiv, | 
how at his footstool, and gratefully reply, “ Of thy fulness have all ¥ 
received, and grace for grace,” John i, 16. For thou art “the Fath 
of lights, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift,” James i, 1 
-Of thee, and through thee, and to thee are all things: to thee, therefo 
be the glory for ever. Amen,” Romans xi, 36. 

7. You will have this humble and thankful disposition if you let you 
repentance cast deeper roots. For if Christian perfection implies 
forsaking all inward, as well as outward sin; and if true repentance : 
a grace whereby we forsake sin, it follows that, to attain Christian 
perfection, we must so follow our Lord’s evangelical precept, “ Repent 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” as to leave no sin, no bosom sin 
no indwelling sin unrepented of, and, of consequence, unforsaken. He 
whose heart is still full of indwelling sin, has no more truly repented of 
indwelling sin, than the man whose mouth is still defiled with filthy 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 643 


and jesting has truly repented of his ribaldry. The deeper our 
w for, and detestation of indwelling sin is, the more penitently do 
Bais the plague of our hearts; and when we properly confess it, 
= inherit the blessing promised in these words: “If we confess our 
as, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from 


all unrighteousness.” 
_ To promote this deep repentance, consider how many spiritual evils 
i haunt your breast. Look into the inward “ chamber of imagery,” 
ing self love, surrounded by a multitude of vain thoughts, 
ish desires, and wild imaginations, keeps her court. Grieve that your 
which should be all flesh, is yet partly stone ; and that your soul, 
= should be only a temple for the Holy Ghost, i is yet so frequently 
turned into a den of thieves, a hole for the cockatrice, a nest fora brood 
of spiritual vipers,—for the remains of envy, jealousy, fretfulness, anger, 
pride, impatience, peevishness, formality, sloth, prejudice, bigotry, carnal 
confidence, evil shame, self righteousness, tormenting fears, uncharitable 
icions, idolatrous love, and I know not how many of the evils which 
the retinue of hypocrisy and unbelief. ‘Through grace detect these 
evils by a close attention to what passes in your own heart at all times, 
ut Bevpscially in an hour of temptation. By frequent and deep con- 
ession, drag out all these abominations: these sins, which would not 
have Christ to reign alone over you, bring before him: place them in 
the light of his countenance ; and (if you do it in faith) that light and 
che warmth of his love will kill them, as the light and heat of the sun 
the worms which the plough turns up to the open air in a dry 
summer’s day. 
_Nor plead that you can do nothing: for, by the help of Christ, who 
always ready to assist the helpless, ye can solemnly say upon your 
snees what ye have probably said in an airy manner to your professing 
fiends. If ye ever acknowledged to them that your heart is deceitful, 
yrone to leave undone what ye ought to do, and ready to do what ye 
ught to leave undone; ye can undoubtedly make the same confession 
lo God. Complain to him who can help you, as ye have done to those 
ho cannot. Lament, as you are able, the darkness of yous mind, the 


od importunately entreat the God of all grace to “ renew a right spirit 

fithin you. If ye sorrow after this godly sort, what carefulness will be 

yrought in you! what indignation! what fear! what vehement desire! 

hat zeal! yea, what revenge!” Ye will then sing in faith, what the 
rfectionists sing in unbelief :— 

oa O how I hate those lusts of mine, 

That crucified my God: 


Those sins that pierced and nail’d his flesh 
Fast to the fatal wood! 


Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die, 
My heart hath so decreed ; 

Nor will I spare those guilty things 
That made my Saviour bleed. 


While with a melting, broken heart, 
My murder’d Lord I view, 

Pll raise revenge against my sins, 
And slay the murderers too. 


644 LAST CHECK TO ANT Oma 


8. Closely erties’ with this dap repéntaiiie is the practice ¢ 
judicious, universal self denial. “If thou wilt be perfect,” says « 
Lord, “ deny thyself, take up thy cross daily, and follow me. Hog 
loveth father or mother [much more he that loyeth praise, pleasure re, 
money] more than me, is not worthy of me:” nay, “ Whosoever | 
save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose it for my sake, shi 
find it.” Many desire to live and reign with Christ, but few choose 
suffer and die with him. However, as the way of the cross leads 
heaven, it undoubtedly leads to Christian perfection. To avoid the cross, 
therefore, or to decline drinking the cup of vinegar and gall, which G 
permits your friends or foes to mix for you, is to throw away the ale 
which Divine wisdom puts to the breasts of the mother of harlots, 
wean you from her and her witchcrafts : it is to refuse a medicine whi 
is kindly prepared to restore your health and appetite: in a word, it 
to renounce the Physician who “ heals all our infirmities,” when we ta 
his bitter draughts, submit to have our imposthumes opened by his she 
Jancet, and yield to have our proud flesh wasted away by-his pai 
caustics. Our Lord « was made a perfect Saviour through suffering: 
and we may be made perfect Christians in the same manner. We mi 
be called to suffer, till all that which we have brought out of spirit 
Egypt is consumed in a howling wilderness, in a dismal Gethsemai 
or on a shameful Calvary. Should this lot be reserved for us, let us 7 
imitate our Lord’s imperfect disciples, who “ forsook him and fled ;” 
let us stand the fiery trial, till all our fetters are melted, and our dross 
purged away. Fire is of a purgative nature : it separates the dross fre 
the gold; and the fiercer it is the more quick and powerful is its oper 
tion. “ He that is left in Zion, and he that remaimeth in Jerusaler 
shall be called holy, &c, when the Lord shall have washed away 
filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jet 
salem by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning,” Isa. iv, 
“J will bring the third part through the fire, saith the Lord, and y 
refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; th 
shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my peop 
and they shall say, The Lord is my God,” Zech. iii, 9. Therefore, 
the Lord should suffer the best men in his camp, or the strongest m 
in Satan’s army, to cast you-into a furnace of fiery temptations, col 
not out of it till you are called.“ Let patience have its perfect work 
meekly keep your trying station till your heart is disengaged from 
that is earthly, and till the sense of God’s preserving power kindles 
you such a faith in his omnipotent love as few experimentally know h 
they who have seen themselves, like the mysterious bush in Hore 
burning and yet unconsumed ; or they who can say with St. Paul, “ ¥ 
are killed all the day long—dying, and behold we live!” 

« Temptations,” says Kempis, “are often very profitable to me 
though they be troublesome and grievous: for in them a man is humble 
purified, and instructed. All the saints have passed through and profite 
by many tribulations : and they that could not bear temptations, be 
Pa ees and fell away.” “ My son,” adds the author of Ecclesiasti 
(chap. ii, 1,) “if thou come to serve the Lord” in the perfeet beaut 
holiness, “ prepare thy soul for temptation. Set thy heart aright ; 
stantly endure; and make not haste in the time of trouble. Whate er 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 645 


1s brought upon thee take cheerfully; and be patient when thou art 
changed to a low estate: for gold is tried and purified in the fire, and 
‘aeceptable men in the furnace of adversity.” And therefore, says St. 
James, “ Blessed is the man that endureth temptation ; for, when he is 
tried, [if he stands the fiery trial,] he shall receive the crown of life, 
‘which the Lord has promised to them that love him” [with the love 
which endureth all things, that is, with perfect love,] James i, 12. 
Patiently endure, then, when God “ for a season (if need be) suffers you 
to be in heaviness through manifold temptations.” By this mean, “ the 
‘trial of your faith, being much more precious than that of gold which 
sa though it be tried in the fire, will be found unto praise, and 
‘honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ,” 1 Pet. i, 7. 

9. Deep repentance is good, Gospel self denial is excellent, and a 
‘degree of patient resignation in trials is of unspeakable use to attain the 
perfection of love; but as “faith immediately works by love,” it is of 
far more immediate use to purify the soul. Hence it is that Christ, the 
prophets, and the apostles, so strongly insist upon faith; assuring us 
ithat, “if we will not believe, we shall,not be established ;” that, “if we 
will believe, we shall see the glory of God; we shall be saved; and 
‘rivers of living water shall flow from our inmost souls; and that our 
jhearts are purified by faith; and that we are saved by grace through 


himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; 
‘but that it should be holy and without blemish.” Now, if believers are 
mot to be “cleansed and made without blemish” by the word, (which tes- 
Hifies of the all-atoning blood, and the love of the Spirit,) it is evident that 
ithey are to be sanctified by faith; for faith, or believing, has as neces- 
‘Sary a reference to the word, as eating has to food. For the same reason 
ithe apostle observes that “they who believe enter into rest; that a pro- 
Mise being given us to enter in, we should take care not to fall short of 
fit” through unbelief; that we ought to take warning by the Israelites, 
who “could not enter” into the land of promise “through unbelief ;” 
that we are “filled with all joy and peace in believing;” and that 
“Christ is able to save to the uttermost them who come unto God through 
im.” Now “coming,” in the Scripture language, is another expres- 
sion for believing : «He that cometh to God,” says the apostle, “ must 
believe.” - Hence it appears that faith is peculiarly necessary to those 
who will “ be saved to the uttermost,” especially a firm faith in the capital 
promise of the Gospel of Christ, the promise of “the Spirit of holiness” 
rom the Father, through the Son. For “ how shall they call on him, in 
whom they have not believed?’ Or, how can they earnestly plead the 
truth, and steadily wait for the performance of a promise, in which they 
have no faith? This doctrine of faith is supported by Peter’s words :— 
“God who knoweth the hearts [of penitent believers] bare them witness, 
giving them the Holy Ghost, and purifying their hearts by faith,” Acts 
xy, 8, 9. For the same Spirit of faith, which initially purifies our hearts 
when we cordially believe the pardoning love of God, completely cleanses 
them when we fully believe his sanctifying love. 

_ 10. This direction about faith being of the utmost importance, I shall 
Confirm and explain it by an extract from Mr. Wesley’s sermon, which 


646 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


points out the Scripture way of salvation : “ Though it be allowed,” say 
this judicious divine, “that both this repentance and its fruits are neces 
sary to full salvation, yet they are not necessary either in the same sens 
with faith, or in the same degree. Not in the same degree ; for these fruit 
are only necessary conditionally, if there be time and opportuni 
them, otherwise aman may be sanctified without them. But.he canno 
be sanctified without faith. Likewise, let a man have ever so much o 
this repentance, or ever so many good works, yet all this does not at al 
avail; he is not sanctified till he believe. But the moment he believes 
with or without those fruits, yea, with more or less of this repentance, h 
is sanctified. ot in the same sense ; for this repentance and thes 
fruits are only remotely necessary in order to the continuance of hii 
faith, as well as the increase of it; whereas faith is immediately anc 
directly necessary to sanctification. It remains that faith is the o aly 
condition which is immediately and proximately necessary to sanctif 
cation. . 
«But what is that faith whereby we are sanctified, sayed from sip 
and: perfected in love? (1.) It is a Divine evidence and conviction, tha 
God hath promised it in the Holy Scriptufes. Till we are thoroughh 
satisfied of this, there is no moving one step farther. And ont 
would imagine there needed not one word more to satisfy a reason 
able man of this, than the ancient promise, ‘Then will I circumcise tly 
heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all th 
heart, and with all thy soul.’ How clearly doth this express the bein 
perfected.in love! How strongly imply the being saved from all sin 
For as long as love takes up the whole heart, what room is there fo 
sin therein? (2.) It is a Divine evidence and conviction, that what Go 
has promised he is able to perform. . Admitting, therefore, that ‘ wit 
men it is impossible to bring a clean thing out of an unclean,’ to purif 
the heart from all sin, and to fill it with all holiness; yet this creates r 
difficulty in the case, seeing ‘ with God all things are possible.’ (3.) 
is an evidence and conviction that he is able and willing to do it Now 
And why not? Is not a moment to him the same as a thousand years 
He cannot want more time to accomplish whatever is his will. We ma 
therefore boldly say at any point of time, ‘ Now is the day of salvation 
Behold! all things are now ready! Come to the marniage!’ (4.) T 
this confidence, that God is both able and willing to sanctify us noy 
there needs to be added one thing more, a Divine evidence and convi¢ 
tion that he doth it. In that hour it is done. God says to the inmos 
soul, ‘ According to thy faith, be it unto thee!’ Then the soul is pur 
from every spot of sin; 2 is clean from all unrighteousness.” a 
Those who have low ideas of faith will probably be surprised to se 
how much Mr. Wesley ascribes to that Christian grace, and to inquire 
why he so nearly connects our believing that'God cleanses us from a 
sin, with God’s actual cleansing us. But their wonder will cease, i 
they consider the definition which this divine gives of faith in the sam 
sermon. “Faith in general,” says he, “is defined by the apostle, a 
evidence, a Divine évidence ‘and conviction [the word used by the apost 
means both] of things not seen ;’ not visible, nor perceivablée eithe 
sight, or by any other of the external senses. It implies both a sup 
natural evidence of God and of the things of God. a kind of spiritual 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 647 


i itieht exhibited to the soul, and a supernatural sight or perception thereof. 


- Accordingly the Scriptures speak of God’s giving sometimes light, some. 


| times a power of discerning it. So St. Paul, ‘God who commanded 
| light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us 


the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ.’ And elsewhere the same apostle speaks of ‘the eyes of our 
understanding being opened.’ By this twofold operation: of the Holy 
Spirit, having the eyes of our souls both opened and enlightened, we see 
the things which the natural ‘eye hath not seen, neither the ear heard.’ 


_ We have a prospect ofthe invisible things of God: we see the spiritual 


world, which is all round about us, and yet is no more discerned by our 


natural faculties, than if it had no being; and we see the eternal world, 


" piercing through the veil which hangs between time and eternity. Clouds 
and darkness then rest upon it no more, but we already see the glory 
which shall be revealed.” 

From this striking definition of faith, it is evident that the doctrine of 
this address exactly coincides with Mr. Wesley’s sermon; with this ver- 
bal difference only, that what he calls faith, implying a ‘twofold opera- 
tion of the Spirit productive of spiritual light and supernatural sight, i 
have called faith, apprehending a sanctifying “baptism (or outpouring) 
of the Spirit.” His mode of expression savours more of the rational 
divine, who logically divides the truth, in order to render its several parts 
conspicuous: and I keep closer to the words of the Scriptures, which, I 
hope, will frighten no candid Protestant. I make this remark for the 
sake of those who fancy that when a doctrine is clothed with expressions 
which are not quite familiar to them, it is a new doctrine, although these 
expressions should be as Scriptural as those of a “baptism, or outpour- 
ing of the Spirit,” which are used by some of the prophets, by John the 
Baptist, by the four evangelists, and by Christ himself. 

I have already pointed out the close connection there is between an 
act of faith which fully apprehends the Spirit of Christ, which makes an 
end of moral corruption by forcing the lingering “man of sin” instan- 
taneously to breathe out his last. Mr. Wesley, in the above-quoted 


sermon, touches upon this delicate subject in so clear and concise a 


manner, that while his discourse is before me, for the sake of those who 


have it not at hand, I shall transcribe the whole passage, and thus put 


the seal of that eminent divine to what I have advanced, in the pre- 
ceding pages, about sanctifying faith and the quick destruction of sin. 

“ Does God work this great work in the’ soul gradually or instanta- 
neously? Perhaps it may be gradually wrought in some: I mean in this 
sense ; they do not advert to the particular moment wherein sin ceases 
to be. But it is infinitely desirable, were it the will of God, that it should 
be done instantaneously ; ; that the Lord should destroy sin by the breath 


of his mouth, in’a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And so he 


_ generally does ; a plain fact, fof which there is evidence enough to satisfy 
any unprejudiced person. Thou therefore look for it every moment. 
Look for it in the way above described ; in all those good works, where- 
‘unto thou art created anew in Christ Jesus. There is then no danger : 
you can be no worse, if you are no better for that expectation. For 
were you to be disappointed of your hope, still you lose nothing. But 
you shall not be disappointed of your hope: it will come, and will not 


‘ene LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


famry. Look for it then everyday, every houf, every moment. W y 
not this hour, this moment? Certainly you may look for it now, if y 
believe it is by faith. And by this token you may surely know whethe 
you seek it by faith or by works: if by works, you want somethi 
be done first, before you are sanctified. You think, “I must first be o1 
do thus or thus.” ‘Then you are seeking it by works unto this day. I 
you seek it by faith, you expect it as you are, and if as you are 
expect it now. Itis of importance to observe that there is an in 
rable connection between these three points,—expeet it by faith, expec 
it as you are, and expect it now! To deny one of them, is to deny them 
all: to allow one, is to allow them all. Do you believe we are sanctifie¢ 
by faith? Be true then to your principle : and look for this blessing j jus 
as you are, neither better nor worse: as a poor sinner, that has sti 1 
nothing to plead but Christ died. And if you look for it as you are, ther 
expect rit. now. Stay for nething: why should you? Christ is ready; 
and he is all you want. He is waiting for you: he is at the door! Let 
your inmost soul cry out,— 
Come in, come in, thou heavenly Guest! 
Nor hence again remove : ‘ 
But sup with me, and let the feast : 
Be everlasting love.” * 
11. Social prayer is closely connected with faith in the capital pro- 
mise of the sanctifying Spirit: and therefore I earnestly recommend 
mean of grace, where it can be had, as being eminently conducive to the 
attaining of Christian perfection. When many believing hearts are lifted 
up, and “wrestle with God in prayer together, you may compare them te 
many diligent hands, which work a large machine. At such tim oy 
particularly, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, the window 
of heaven are opened, and “ rivers of living water Baapri into the heartll 
of obedient believers. 


In Christ when brethren join, 
And follow after peace, 
The fellowship Divine 
He promises to bless, 
His chiefest graces to bestow 
Where two or three are met below. 


Where unity takes place, 
The joys of heaven we prove; 
This is the Gospel grace, 
The unction from above, 
The Spirit on all believers shed, * 
Descending swift from Christ their Head. 


Accordingly we read, that when God powerfully opened the kin odom 
of the Holy Ghost on the day of pentecost, the disciples “ were all wit 
one accord in one place.” And when he confirmed that kingdom, t 
“were lifting up their voices to God with one accord :” see Acts ii 
and iv, 24. Thus also the believers at Samaria were filled with th 
Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier, while Peter and John prayed with bare J: 
laid their hands upon them. ‘ 
12. But perhaps thou art alone. As a solitary bird ert sitteth on 
the housetop, thou lookest fora companion who may go with thee through 
the deepest travail of the regeneration. But, alas! thou lookest in vain: — 


* 


| 
| 
| 


; 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 649 


all the professors about thee seem satisfied with their former experiences, 
and with self-imputed or self-conceited perfection. When thou givest 
_ them a hint of thy want of power from on high, and of thy hunger and 
thirst after a fulness of righteousness, they do not sympathize with thee. 
And indeed how can they? They are full already, they reign without 
thee, they have need of nothing. They do not sensibly want that “ God 
would grant them, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened 
with might in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in their hearts by 
faith, that they, being rooted and grounded in love, may comprehend with 
all saints [perfected in love] what is the breadth, and length, and depth, 
and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, 
that they might be filled with all the fulness of God,” Eph. ii, 16, &c. 
They look upon thee as a whimsical person, full of singular notions, and 
they rather damp than enliven thy hopes. Thy circumstances are sad; 
but do not give place to despair, no, not for a moment. In the name 
of Christ, who could not get even Peter, James, and John, to watch with 
him one hour; and who was obliged to go through his agony alone ;— 
in his name, I say, “Cast not away thy confidence, which has great 
recompense of reward.” Under all thy discouragements, remember 
that, after all, Divine grace is not confined to numbers, any more than 
to afew. When all outward helps fail thee, make the more of Christ, 
on whom sufficient help is laid for thee—Christ, who says, “I will go 
with thee through fire and water ;” the former shall not burn thee, nor 
the latter drown thee. Jacob was alone when he wrestled with the 
angel, yet he prevailed; and if the servant is not above his master, 
wonder not that it should be said of thee, as of thy Lord, when he went 
through his greatest temptations, “Of the people there was none with 
him.” ‘ 7 
Should thy conflicts be “with confused noise, with burning and fuel 
of fire ;” should thy “Jerusalem be rebuilt in troublesome ‘times ;” 
should the Lord “shake, not the earth only, but also heaven; should 
deep call unto deep at the noise of his water spouts ; should all his waves 
and billows go over thee ;” should thy patience be tried to the uttermost ; 
remember how in years past thou hast tried the patience of God, nor be 
discouraged: an extremity and a storm are often God’s opportunity. 
A blast of temptation, and a shaking of all thy foundations, may introduce 
the fulness of God to thy soul, and answer the end of the rushing wind, 
and of the shaking, which formerly accompanied the first great mani- 
festations of the Spirit. The Jews still expect the coming of the Messiah 
in the flesh, and they particularly expect it ina storm. When lightnings 
flash, when thunders roar, when a strong wind shakes their houses, and 
the tempestuous sky seems to rush down in thunder showers ; then some 
of them particularly open their doors and windows to entertain their 
wished-for Deliverer. Do spiritually what they do carnally. Constantly 
wait for full “‘ power from on high ;” but especially when a storm of 
affliction, temptation, or distress overtakes thee ; or when thy convictions 
and desires raise thee above thyself, as the waters of the flood raised 
Noah’s ark above the earth; then be particularly careful to throw the 
door of Farru, and the window of nore as wide open as thou canst; 
and, spreading the arms of thy imperfect Love, say with all the ardour 
and resignation which thou art master of,— 


650 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


“My heart strings groan with deep complaint, © = 


RQ 


My flesh lies panting, Lord, for thee ; { Ane» septal 
And every limb, and every joint, ug en 
Stretches for perfect purity.” ag Sa i. 
ate Ny 


But if the Lord be pleased to come softly to thy help; if he make an 
end of thy corruption by helping thee gently to sink to unknown dep 
of meekness ; if he drown the indwelling man of sin, by baptizing, 
plunging him into an abyss of humility ; do not find fault with the sim. 
plicity of his method, the plainness of his appearing, and the common- 

ness of his prescription. Nature, like Naaman, is full of prejudices. She 
expects that Christ will come to make her clean with as much ado, 
pomp, and bustle, as the Syrian general looked for, “ when he was wroth 
and said, Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me and stand _ 
and call on his God. and strike his hand over-the place——and 
recover the leper.” Christ frequently goes a much plainer way te 
work ; and by this mean he disconcerts all our preconceived notions 
and schemes of deliverance. “Learn of me to be meek and lowly i 
heart, and thou shalt find rest to thy soul,” the sweet rest of Christian 
perfection, of perfect humility, resignation, and Meekness. Lie at my 
feet, as she did who loved much, and was meekly taken up with “ the 
good part, and the one thing needful.” But thou frettest ; thou despises! 
this robe of perfection; it is too plain for thee; thou slightest “the 
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of 
great price :” nothing will serve thy turn but a tawdry coat of many 
colours, which may please thy proud self will, and draw the attention 
of others, by its glorious and flaming appearance ; and it must be brought 
to thee with lightnings, thunderings, and voices. If this be thy disposi- 
tion, wonder not at the Divine wisdom which thinks fit to disappoint thy 
lofty prejudices ; and let me address thee, as Naaman’s servants ad. 
dressed him: “ My brother, if the prophet had bid thee do some great 
thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he 
says to thee, Iam the meek and lowly Lamb of God ; wash in the stream of 
my blood—plunge in the Jordan of my humility, and be clean!” Instead 
therefore of going away from a plain Jesus in a rage, welcome him in 
his lowest appearance, and be persuaded that he can as easily make an 
end of thy sin, by gently coming in “a still, small voice,” as by-rushing 
in upon thee in “a storm, a fire, or an earthquake.” ‘The Jews rejected 
their Saviour, not so much because they did not earnestly desire his 
coming, as because he did not come in the manner in which they ex- 
pected him. It is probable that some of this Judaism cleaves to thee. 
If thou wilt absolutely come to Mount Sion in a triumphal chariot,-or 
make thine entrance into the New Jerusalem upon a prancing horse, 
thou art likely never to come there. Leave then all thy lordly miscon- 
ceptions behind ; and humbly follow thy King, who makes his entry inte 
the typical Jerusalem, “meek and lowly, riding upon an ass, yea, upon 
a colt, the foal of an ass.” I say it again, therefore, while thy faith and © 
hope strongly insist on the blessing, let thy resignation and patience — 
leave to God’s infinite goodness and wisdom the peculiar manner of be- — 
stowing it. When he says, “Surely I come quickly to make my abode 
with thee,” let thy faith close in with his word ; ardently and yet meekly _ 
embrace his promise. ‘This will instantly beget power; and with that — 


a 


4 


} ~~ 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 651 


_ power thou mayest instantly bring forth prayer, and possibly the prayer 
which opéns heaven, which humbly wrestles with God, inherits the 
blessing, and turns the well-known petition, “Amen! Even so, come 
Lord Jesus!” into the well-known praises, He is come, he is come, O 
_ praise the Lord, O my soul, &c. 'Thus repent, believe, and obey ; and 
: he that cometh will come” with a fulness of pure, meek, humble love ; 
“he will not tarry,” or if he tarry, it will be to give thy faith and desires 
more time to open, that thou mayest, at his appearing, be able to take 
in more of his perfecting grace and sanctifying power: beside, thy ex- 
_ pectation of his coming is of a purifying nature, and gradually sanctifies 
_ thee. “ He that has this hope in him,” by this very hope “ purifies him- 
» self even as God is pure :” for “we are saved [into perfect love] by 
hope as well as by faith.” The stalk, as well as the root, bears “the 
full corn in the ear.” 

Up then, thou sincere expectant of God’s kingdom! Let thy humble, 
ardent free will meet prevenient, sanctifying free grace in its weakest 
and darkest appearance, as the father of the faithful met the Lord, 
«“ when he appeared to him on the plain of Mamre” as a mere mortal. 
« Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo! three men stood by 
him.” So does free grace (if I may venture upon the allusion) invite 
itself to thy tent: nay, it is now with thee in its creating, redeeming, 
and sanctifying influences. “And when he saw them, he ran to meet 
fhem from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground.” Go 
and do likewise: if thou’seest any beauty in the humbling grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, in the sanctifying love of God, and in the comfort- 
able fellowship of the Holy Ghost, let thy free will run to meet them, 
and bow itself toward the ground. O for a speedy going out of thy tent, 
thy sinful self! O for a race of desire in the way of faith! O for in- 
cessant prostrations! O for a meek and deep bowing of thyself before 
thy Divine Deliverer! “And Abraham said, My Lord, if now I have 
found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant!” 
O for the humble pressing of a loving faith! O for the faith which 

stopped the sun, when God avenged his people in the days of Joshua! 
O for the importunate faith of the two disciples who detained Christ, 
when “he made as though he would have gone farther! They con- 
strained him, saying, Adide with us, for it is toward evening, and the 
day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.” He soon indeed 
vanished out of their bodily sight, because they were not called always 
to enjoy his bodily presence. Far from promising them that blessing, 
he had said, “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not 
away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send 
_him unto you, that he may abide with you for ever. He dwelleth with 
_ you, and shall be in you.” This promise is “yea and amEN in Christ ;” 
only plead it according to the preceding directions, and as sure as the 
‘Lord is the true and faithful Witness, so sure will the God of hope and 
| love soon fill you with all joy and peace, that ye may abound in pure 
love, as well as in confirmed hope, “through the power of the Holy 
Ghost.” Then shall you have an indisputable mght to join the believers 
who sing at the Tabernacle, and at the Lock Chapel, in the words of 
Messrs. J. and C. Wesley :— ; 


652 _LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. a 


‘‘ Many are we now and ong, _ vet 
We who Jesus have put on. o ae 
There is neither bond nor free, ‘i? q 
Male nor female, Lord, in thee. ; Os. 
Love, like death, hath all destroy’d, . 
Render’d all distinction void ; a 
Names, and sects, and parties a b os 
Thou, O Christ, art all in all.” 


In the meantime you may sing with the pious countess of Hunting. © 
don, the Rev. Mr. Madan, the Rev. Dr. Conyers, the Rev. Mr. Ber- 
ridge, Richard Hill, Esq., and the imperfectionists who use their 
collections of hymns: ye may sing, I say, with them all, the two fol- — 
lowing hymns, which they have agreed to borrow from the hymns of — 
Messrs. J. and C. Wesley, after making some insignificant alterations. 
I transcribe them from the collection used in Lady naam oer s chapels, 
(Bristol edition, 1765, p. 239, &c.) 


O for a heart to praise my God! 
A heart from sin set free : 

A heart that’s sprinkled with the blood 
So freely spilt for me: 


A heart resign’d, submissive, meek, 
My dear Redeemer’s throne ; ‘ 
Where only Christ is heard to speak, 
Where Jesus reigns alone: : * 


An humble, lowly, contrite heart, 
Believing, true, and clean ; 

Which neither life nor death can part 
From him that dwells within : 


A heart in every thought renew’d, 

_ And fill’d with love Divine; 

Perfect, and right, and pure, and good; Lege 
A copy, Lord, of thine! 


My heart, thou know’st, can never rest. we 
Till thou create my peace * Oy HAD 
Till of my Eden repossess’d, 
From self and sin I cease. 


Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart, : 
Come quickly from above ; a 

Write thy new name upon my heart, 
Thy new, best name of LoyE. 


Here is undoubtedly an evangelical prayer for the Loye which re- 
stores the soul to a state of sinless rest and evangelical perfection. | 
Mean ye, my brethren, what the good people who dissent from us print — 
and sing, and I ask no more. Nor can ye wait for an answer to the prayer 
contained in the preceding hymn, in a more Scriptural manner, than ce 
pleading “the promise of the Father” in such wotds as these :— 


Love Divine, all loves excelling, oe 
Joy of heaven to earth come down! he 
Fix in us thine humble dweliing, a 
All thy faithful mercies crown: ts 
Jesus, thou art all compassion, ys 
: Pure, unbounded love thou art ; “te ‘a 
Visit us with thy salvation, 4 
Enter every trembling heart. 


SS 


Ea — 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. — 653 


’ Breathe! O breathe thy loving Spirit 

Into every troubled breast ! 

Let us all in thee inherit, 
Let us find thy promised* rest. 

Take away the power} of sinning, 
Alpha and Omega be; 

End of faith, as its beginning, 
Set our hearts at liberty. 


Come, Almighty to deliver, 
Let us all thy life receive ! 
Suddenly return, and never, 
Never more thy temples leave! 
Thee we would be always blessing, 
Serve thee as thine hosts above; 
Pray and praise thee without ceasing, 
Glory in thy precious love.t 


Finish then thy new creation, 
Pure,§ unspotted may we be; 
Let us see thy great ‘salvation, 
Perfectly restored by thee ; 
Changed from glory into glory, 
Till in heaven we take our place; 
Till we cast our crowns before thee, 
Lost in wonder, love, and praise. 


Lift up your hands which hang down; our Aaron, our heavenly High 
Priest, is near to hold them up. The spiritual Amalekites will not 
always prevail; our Samuel, our heavenly prophet, is ready “to cut 
them and their king in pieces before the Lord. ‘The promise is unto 
you.” You are surely called to attain the perfection of your dispensa- 
tion, although you still seem afar off. Christ, in whom that perfection 
centres—Christ, from whom it flows, is very near, even at the door: 
“ Behold, says he, [and this he spake to Laodicean loiterers,] I stand at 
the door and knock. If any man pear my voice and open, I will come 


* Mr. Wesley says, second rest, because an imperfect believer enjoys a first, 
inferior rest: if he did not, he would be no believer. 

+ Is not this expression too strong? Would it not be better to soften it as Mr. 
Hill has done, by saying, ‘‘Take away the love of [or the bent to] sinning?” 
Can God take away from us our power of sinning, without taking. away our 
power of free obedience ? 

t Mr. Wesley says, perfect love, with St. John. 

§ Mr. Wesley says, indeed, pure and sinless; but when Mr. Hill sings pure, 
unspotted, he does not spoil the sense. For every body knows that the pure, 
unspotted Jesus does not differ from the sinless, immaculate Lamb of God. This 
fine hymn (I think) is not in Mr. Madan’s collection, but he has probably sung 
it more than once. However, if is adopted in the Shrewsbury collection, of 
which Mr. Hill is the publisher, in conjunction with Mr. DeCourcy. Is it not 
surprising, that in his devotional warmth that gentleman should print, give out, 
and sing, Mr. Wesley’s strongest hymns for Christian perfection ; when, in his 
controversial heat, he writes so severely against this blessed state of heart ? And 
may not I take my leave of him by an allusion to our Lord’s words, Out of thy 
own mouth, thy own pen, thy own publications, thy own hymns, thy own prayers, 
thy own Bible, thy own reason, thy own conscience, and, (what is most aston- 
ishing!) thy own professional and baptismal vow, I will judge thy mistakes! 
Nevertheless, I desire the reader to impute them, as I do, not to any love for 
indwelling sin, but to the fatal error which makes my pious opponent turn his 
back upon tke genuine doctrines of grace and justice, and espouse the spurious 
doctrines of Calvinian grace and free wrath. 


«we 
, 4 

ra . J q 
J 


654 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


in and sup with him,” upon the fruits of my grace, im them Christian 
perfection ; and he shall sup with me upon the fruits of my glory, 
their angelical and heavenly maturity. » te 
Hear this encouraging Gospel: “Ask, and you shall have ; eek 
and you shall find ; knock, and it shall be “opened unto you. For every 
one that asketh, receiveth ; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him 
that knocketh, it shall be opened. If any of you, [believers] lack wi 
dom—indwelling wisdom, [Christ the wisdom and the power of God 
dwelling in his’ heart by faith,] let him ask of God, who giveth to all 
ise and upbraideth not, and it shall be hee him. But let him ask | 
jas a believer] in faith, nothing wavering ; for he that wayereth is like 
a wave of the sea, driven with the eS and tossed: for let not that 
man think that he shall receive” the thing which he thus asketh. “But 
whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive — 
them, and ye shall have them. For all things [commanded and pro- 
mised] are possible to him that believeth.” He who has commanded 
us to be perfect “in love, as our heavenly Father is perfect,” and he 
who has promised “speedily to avenge his elect, who cry to him night 
and day;” he will speedily avenge you of your grand adversary, in- 
dwelling sin. He will say to you, “ According to thy faith, be it done 
unto thee; for he is able to do far exceedingly abundantly, far above 
all that we can ask or think, and of his fulness we may all receive grace” 
for grace”—we may all witness the gracious fulfilment of all the pro-— 
mises, which he has graciously made, that by “them we might be par- 
takers of the Divine nature,” so far as it can be communicated to — 
mortals in this world. You see that, with men, what you look for is — 
impossible : but you show yourselves believers: take God into the ac- — 
count, and you will soon experience, that “ with God all things are pos- 
sible.” Nor forget the omnipotent Advocate whom you have with him. — 
Behold! he lifts his once pierced hands, and says, “ Father, sanctify 
them through [thy loving] truth, that they may be perfected in love :” 
and showing to you the fountain of atoning blood, and purifying water, 
whence flow the streams which cleanse and gladden the hearts of be- 
lievers, he says, “ Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name—what- 
soever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Ask, 
then, that your joy may be full.” If I try your faith by a little delay: 
if I hide my face for a moment, it is only to gather you with everlasting — 
kindness. A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her 
hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remem- 
bereth no more the anguish for joy. Now ye have sorraw, but I will 
see you again, and your hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man 
taketh from you.” In that day ye shall ask me no question, for you 
shall not have my bodily presence. But my urim and thunimim will 
be with you; and the “Spirit of truth will himself lead you into all” 
[Christian] truth.” ot 
O for a firm and lasting faith, eae 
To credit all the Almighty saith, ye 
To embrace the promise of his Son, 4 
And feel the Comforter our own! * 


in the meantime be not afraid to give glory to God by “ believing in 
hope against hope.” Stagger not “at the promise [of the Father and 


SS 


‘LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 655_ 


the Son] through unbelief :” but trust the power and faithfulness of your 


_ Greator and Redeemer, till your Sanctifier has fixed his abode in your 
heart. Wait at mercy’s door, as the lame beggar did at the beautiful 
- gate of the temple. “Peter fastening his eyes upon him, with John, 
‘said, Look to us: and he gave heed to them, expecting to receive some- 


thing of them.” Do so too: give heed to the Father in the Son, who 
, “Look unto me and be ye saved.” Expect to receive “the one 
thing now needful” for you,—a fulness of the sanctifying Spirit: and 


though your patience may be tried, it shali not be disappointed. The 


faith and power, which, at Peter’s word, gave the poor cripple a perfect 


soundness in the presence of all the wondering Jews, will give you, at 


Christ’s word, a perfect soundness of heart in the presence of all your 


adversaries. 


Faith—mighty faith, the promise sees, 
And looks to that alone, 
Laughs at impossibilities, ; 
And cries, “ It shall be done !” 
Faith asks impossibilities ; 
Impossibilities are given : 
And J—e’en I, from sin shall cease, 
Shall life on earth the life of heaven. 

Faith always “works by love,”—by love of desire at least; making 
us ardently pray for what we believe to be eminently desirable. And if 
Christian perfection appears so to you, you might perhaps express your 
earnest desire of it in*some such words as these :—How long, Lord, 
shall my soul, thy spiritual temple, be a den of thieves, or a house 


’ of merchandise? How long shall vain thoughts profane it, as the 


buyers and sellers profaned thy temple made with human hands? 
How long shall evil tempers lodge within me? How long shall 
unbelief, formality, hypocrisy, envy, hankering after sensual plea- 
sure, indifference to spiritual delights, and backwardness to painful or 
ignominious duty, harbour there? How long shall these sheep and 
doves, yea, these goats and serpents, defile my breast, which should be 


_ pure as the holy of holies? How long shall they hinder me from being 


one of the worshippers whom thou seekest,—one of those who worship 
thee in spirit and in truth? O help me to take away these cages of 
unclean birds. “Suddenly come to thy temple.” Turn out all that 
offends the eyes of thy purity; and destroy all that keeps me out of 
“the rest which remains for thy Christian people :” so shall I keep a 
Spiritual Sabbath,—a Christian jubilee to the God of my life. So shall ~ 
I witness myshare in the oil of joy with which thou anointest perfect 
Christians above their fellow believers; I stand in need of that oil, 
Lord: my lamp burns dim: sometimes it seems to be eyen gone out, as 
that of the foolish virgins; it is more like “a smoking flax” than “a 
burning and shining light.”- O! quench it not: raise it to a flame. 


_ Thou knowest that I do believe in thee. The trembling hand of my 


faith holds thee ; and though I have ten thousand times grieved thy 
pardoning love, thine everlasting arm is still under me, to redeem my 
life from destruction ; while thy right hand is over me, to crown me with 
mercies and loving kindness. _ But, alas! I am neither sufficiently 
thankful for thy present mercies, nor sufficiently athirst for “thy future 
favours. Hence I feel an aching void in my soul, being conscious that 


al eee 
war i ; 


656 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


I have not attained the heights of grace described in thy wore 
enjoyed by thy holiest servants. Their deep experiences, the dil 
and ardour with which they did thy will; the patience and for 
with which they endured the cross, reproach me, and convince m 
my manifold wants. I want “ power from on high ;” I want the 
trating, lasting “unction of the Holy One.” I want to have my ¥ 
(my capacious heart) full of oil, which makes the countenance of ¥ 
virgins cheerful. I want a lamp of heavenly illumination, and a fire of 
Divine love, burning day and night in my breast, as the typical lamps 
did in the temple, and the sacred fire on the altar ; ; I want a full appli. 
cation of the blood which cleanses from all sin, and a strong faith in thy 
sanctifying word,—a faith by which thou mayest dwell in my heart, as _ 
the unwavering hope of glory, and the fixed object of my love. I want ~ 
the internal oracle,—thy still, small voice, together with urim and thums 
mim,*—“ the new name which none knoweth but he that receiveth it.’ 
In a word, Lord, I want a plenitude of thy Spirit, the full promise of # 
Father, and the rivers which flow from the inmost souls of the believers, 
who have gone on to the perfection of their dispensation. *I do believe 
that thou canst and wilt thus “‘ baptize me with the Holy Ghost and witl 
fire :” help my unbelief: confirm and increase my faith, with regard t 
this important baptism. Lord, I have need to be thus baptized of thee, anc 
Iam straitened till this baptism is accomplished. By thy baptisms of tears 
in the manger—of water in Jordan—of sweat in Gethsemane—of blood, 
and fire, and vapour of smoke, and flaming wrath on Calvary, bapti 
O, baptize my soul, and make as full an end of the original sin which 
have from Adam, as thy last baptism made of the likeness of sinfu 
flesh, which thou hadst from a daughter of Eve. Some of thy people 
look at death for full salvation from sin; but, at thy command, Lord, 
I look unto thee. ‘Say to my soul, I am thy salvation:” and let m 
feel with my heart, as well as see with my understanding, that thou 
canst save from sin to the uttermost, all that come to God through ree I 
am tired of forms, professions, and orthodox notions; so far as they aa 
not pipes or channels to convey life, light, and love to my dead, daa 
and stony heart. Neither the plain letter of thy Gospel, nor the swe 
foretastes and transient illuminations of thy Spirit, can satisfy the larg 
desires of my faith. Give me thine abiding Spirit, that he may continua 
shed abroad thy love in my soul. Come, O Lord, with that bless 

Spirit: come thou, and thy Father, in that holy Contatieasienensll i 
make your abode with me ; or I shall go meekly mourning to my grave 
Blessed mourning ! Lord, increase it. J had rather wait in tears fo; 

thy fulness than wantonly waste the fragments of thy spiritual bounties, 
or feed with Laodicean contentment upon the tainted manna of my 
former experiences. “Righteous Father, “I hunger and thirst after thy 
righteousness :” send thy Holy Spirit of promise to fill me therewith 
sanctify me throughout, and to “seal me centrally to the day of eternal 
redemption” and finished salvation. «Not for works of righteousness 
which I have done, but of thy mercy,” for Christ’s sake, “save thou mi 
by the complete washing of regeneration, and the full renewing of the 
Holy Ghost.” And in order to this, pour out of thy Spirit; shed it” 


’ etary 


6 Ec 


* Two Hebrew words, which mean lights and perfections. 


> 
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 657 


_ abundantly on me till the fountain of living water abundantly spring up 
in my soul, and I can say, in the full sense of the words, that thou 
- Slivest in me, that my life is hid with thee in God, and that my spirit is 
the first and the last,—my author 


“and my end —my God and my all!” 
bd ier 


SECTION XX. 
An address to perfect Christians. 


: 7 


-, - 


ey = Ye have not A teed cael: lsyuaed asain, © ye men of God, 
= have mixed faith with your evangelical requests. The God, who 


says, “ Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it;” the gracious God who 
“Blessed are they that hunger after righteousness, for they 

npg be filled ;” that faithful, covenant-keeping God has now filled you 
with all «“ righteousness, peace, and joy in believing.” The brightness 
Christ’s appearing has destroyed the indwelling “man of sin.” He 

had slain the lion and the bear (he who had already done so great 
things for you) has now crowned all his blessings by slaying the Goliath 
Aspiring, unbelieving self is fallen before the victorious Son 
of David. “The quick and powerful word of God, which is sharper 
than any two-edged sword, has pierced even to the dividing asunder of soul 
and spirit.” The carnal mind is cut off: the circumcision of the heart, 

| through the Spirit, has fully taken place in your breasts; and now 

| “that mind is in you which was also in Christ Jesus ; ye are spiritually 
| minded :” loving God with all your heart, and your neighbour as your- 
| selves, “ye are full of goodness, ye keep the commandments,” ye observe 

| the law of liberty, ye fulfil the law of Christ. Of him ye have 
| “learned to be meek and lowly in heart.” Ye have fully “taken his 
| yoke upon you ;” im so doing ye have found a sweet, abiding rest unto 
souls ; and from blessed experience ye can say, “ Christ’s yoke is 
easy, and his burden is light. His ways are ways of pleasantness, and 
all his paths are peace. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and 
truth, unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.” The 
beatitudes are sensibly yours: and the charity, described by St. Paul, 
hhas the same place in your breasts which the tables of the law had im 
the ark of the covenant. Ye are the living temples of the trinity: the 
ny is your life; the Son your light; the Spirit your love; ye are 


. 
| 
: 
| 


truly baptized into the mystery of God, ye continue to “ drink into one 
and thus ye enjoy the grace of both sacraments. There is an 
end of your Lo here! and Lo there! The kingdom of God is snow 

established within you. Christ’s “righteousness, peace, and j joy” 
| Rooted in your breasts “by the Holy Ghost given unto you,” as an 
abiding guide, and indwelling comforter. Your introverted eye of faith 
looks at God, who gently “guides you with his eye” into all the truth 
to make you “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with 
your God.” Simplicity of intention keeps darkness out of your mind, 
| and purity of affection keeps wrong fires out of your breast: by the 

i ye are without guile ; by the as ye are without envy. Your 
; ox. I. 


ae 


658 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 
a. 


passive will instantly melts into the will of God; and on all i ee 
you meekly say, “ Not my will, O Father, but thine be done” Ti 
ye are always ready to suffer what you are called to suffer. Y 
active will evermore says, “Speak, Lord; thy servant heareth: 
wouldst thou have me to do? It is my meat and drink to do the 
my heavenly Father!’ Thus are ye always ready to do whatsoeve 
are convinced that God calls you to do; and “whatsoever ye do, wh 
ther ye eat, or drink, or do any thing else, ye do all to the glory of | 0 
and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ ; rejoicing evermore ; prayini 
without ceasing ; in every thing giving thanks ;” solemnly looking ft 
and hasting unto the hour of your dissolution, and the “day of Go¢ 
wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved,” and your soul, 
being clothed with a celestial body, shall be able to do celestial servi ce 
to the God of your life. 
In this blessed state of Christian perfection the holy “ anointing, 
which. ye have received of him, abideth in you, and ye need not that 
any man teach you, unless it be as the. same anointi teacheth, 
Agreeably, therefore, to that anointing, which teaches by a variety of _ 
means, which formerly taught a prophet by an ass, and daily instruct 
Gog’s children by the ant, I shall venture to set before you some impor 
tant directions which the Holy Ghost has already suggested to you 
pure minds: “ for I would not be negligent to put you in conchae 
of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the pre 
truth. Yea, I think it meet to stir you up, by putting you in remem 
brance,” and giving you some hints, which it is safe for you frequenth 
to meditate upon. 
I. Adam, ye know, lost his human perfection in paradise ; Satan lo s 
his angelic perfectionin heaven ; the devil thrust sore at Christ in th 
wilderness, to throw him down from his mediatorial perfection: and§ 
Paul, in the same epistles where he professes not only Christian, but 
apostolic perfection also, (Phil. iii, 15; 1 Cor. ii, 6; 2 Cor. xii, 11,) 
informs us that he continued to “ run for the crown of heavenly pore 
tion” like a man who might not only lose his crown of Christian pe 
fection, but become a reprobate, and be cast away, 1 Cor. ix, de, 
And, therefore, “so run ye also, that no man take your crown” 
Christian perfection in this world, and that ye may obtain your cre OW 
of angelic perfection in the world to come. Still keep your boc 
under. Still guard your senses. Still watch your own heart, ant 
“ steadfast in the faith, still resist the devil that he may flee fro} 
you ;” remembering that if Christ himself, as Son of man, had com. 
ferred with flesh and blood, refused to deny himself, and avoided takir 
up his cross, he had lost his perfection, and sealed up our orig 
apostasy. 4 
“We do not find,” says Mr. Wesley, in his Plain Account of Chris- 
tian Perfection, “ any general state described in Scripture, from whic 
aman cannot draw back to sin. If there were any state wherein this” 
is impossible, it would be that of those who are sanctified, who are 
fathers in Christ, who ‘rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, an 
every thing give thanks.’ But it is not impossible for these to ¢ 
back. “They who are sanctified may yet fall and perish, Heb. x 2, i 
‘Even ‘fathers in Christ’ need that warning, ‘ Laven not the world 


LAST CHECK YO ANTINOMIANISM.. 659 


1 John ii, 15. They who ‘rejoice, pray, and give thanks without 
easing,’ may nevertheless ‘quench the Spirit,’ 1 Thess. v, 16, &c. 
Nay, even they who are ‘sealed unto the day of redemption,’ may yet 
mee the Holy Spirit of God,’ Eph. v, 30.”* 

_ The doctrine of the absolute perseverance of the saints is the first 
eard which the devil played against man :—“ Ye'shall not surely die, if 
ye break the law of your perfection.” This fatal card won the game. 
Mankind and paradise were lost. The artful serpent had too well suc- 
ceeded at his first game to forget that lucky card at his second. See 
him “ transforming himself into an angel of light on the pinnacle of the 
temple.” There he plays over again his old game against the Son of 
God. Out of the Bible he pulls the very card which won our first 
parents, and swept the stake—paradise—yea, swept it with the besom 

of destruction :—“Cast thyself down,” says he, “for it is written, [that 
all things shall work together for thy good, thy very falls not excepted,] 
he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they 
shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” 
The tempter (thanks be to Christ!) lost the game at that time, but he 
did not lose his card: and it is probable that he will play it round against 
you all only with some variation. Let me mention one among a thou- 
sand :—He promised our Lord that God's “angels should bear him up 
in their hands, if he threw himself down ;” and it is not unlikely that he 
will promise you greater things still. Nor should I wonder if he was 
bold enough to hint, that when you cast yourselves down, “God himself 
‘shall bear you up in his HaANpDs, yea, in his arms of everlasting love.” 
O ye men of God, learn wisdom by the fall of Adam. O ye anointed 
‘sons of the Most High, learn watchfulness by the conduct of Christ. 
If he was afraid to “tempt the Lord his God,” will ye dare to do it? 
ie he rejected, as poison, the hook of the absolute perseverance cf the 
/saints, though it was baited with Scripture, will ye swallow it down as if 
‘it were “honey out of the rock of ages?” No: « through faith in Christ, 
the Scriptures have made you wise unto salvation :” you will not only 
flee with all speed from evil, but from the very appearance of evil: and 
when you stand on the brink of a temptation, far from “ entering into it,” 
under any pretence whatever, ye will leap back into the bosom of him 
who says, “ Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation ; for though 
‘the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.” I grant that, evangelically 
speaking, “the weakness of the flesh” is not sin; but yet the “deceit- 
fulness of siti” creeps int at this door: and in this way not a few of 
God’s children, “after they had escaped the pollutions of the world, 
through the” sanctifying knowledge of Christ, under plausible pretences, 


‘Shave been entangled again therein and overcome.” Let their falls 


_ *We do not hereby deny that some believers have a testimony in their own 
reasts that they shall not finally fall from God. “They may have it,” says 

. Wesley, in the same tract, ‘‘and this persuasion that ‘ neither life nor death 
hall separate them from God, far from being hurtful, may in some circum- 
ances be extremely useful.’ But wherever this testimony is Divine, it is 
ttended with that grace which inseparably connects holiness and good works, 
he means, with perseverance and eternal salvation, the end; and, in this respect, 
ur doctrine widely differs from that of the Calvinists, who break the necessary 
onnection between holiness and infallible salvation, by making room for the 
onlest fal.s—for adultery, murder and incest. 


. 


7 
t 
5 


ene” 


660 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM 


make you cautious. Ye have “put on the whole armour of God 
O keep it on, and use it “with all prayer,” that ye may tot 2 


that has ‘loved you.” 
II. Remember that “every one who is perfect shall ‘a as.his Master.” 
Now if your Master Was tempted and assaulted to the last ; if to the k 
he watched and prayed, using all the means of grace himself, and er 
forcing the use of them upon others ; if ¢o the last he fought against the 
world, the flesh, and the devil, and did not “ put off the harness” till he 
had put off the body ; think not yourselves above him; but “go and d 
likewise.” If he did not regain paradise, without going through th 
most complete renunciation of all the good things of this world, and 
without meekly submitting to the severe stroke of his last enemy, deat 
be content to be “perfect as he was:” nor fancy that your flesh a 
blood can inherit the celestial kingdom of God, when the flesh and blo 
which Emmanuel himself assumed from a pure virgin, could not inhei 
it without passing under the cherub’s flaming sword: I mean, withe 
going through the gates of death. 
Ill. Ye are not complete in wisdom. Perfect love does not impl 
perfect knowledge; but perfect humility, and perfect readiness to recei 
instruction. Remember, therefore, that if ever ye show that ye ai 
above being instructed, even by a fisherman who teaches according t 
the Divine anointing, ye will show that ye are fallen from a perfecti 
of humility fhto a perfection of pride. . 
IV. Do not confound angelical with Christian perfection. Uni 
terrupted transports of praise, and ceaseless raptures of joy, do n 
belong to Christian, but to angelical perfection. Our feeble frame ea 
bear but a few drops of that glorious cup. In general, that new wine is | 
too strong for our old bottles ; that power is too excellent for our earthe 
cracked vessels ; but weak as they are, they can bear a fulness of meek 
ness, of resignation, of humility, and of that love which is willing t | 
“obey unto death.” If God indulge you with ecstacies, and extn 
ordinary revelations, be thankful for them: but be “not exalted abo 
measure by them ;” take care lest enthusiastic delusions mix themsel\ 
with them; and remember that yotr Christian perfection does not 
much consist in “ building a tabernacle” upon Mount Tabor, to rest ai 
enjoy rare sights there, as in resolutely taking up the eross, and f 
lowing Christ to the palace of a proud Caiaphas, to the judgment h 
of an unjust Pilate, and to the top of an ignominious Calvary. Yeney 
read in your Bibles, “ Let that glory be upon you which was also up 
St. Stephen, when he looked up steadfastly into heaven, and said 
hold! I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right 
hand of God.” But ye have frequently read there, “ Tet this mind be 
in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who made himself of no reputa- 
tion, took upon him the form of a servant, and being found in fashi 
a man, humbled himself, and became abet unto death, even the « 
of the cross.’ 
See him on that ignominious gibbet! He hangs—abandoned by his 
friends—surrounded by his foes—condemned by the rich—insulted by 
the poor! He hangs—“ a worm and no man—a very scorn of men, t 
the outcast of the people! All that see him laugh him to scorn! 


LAST CHECK TU ANTINOMIANISM. 661 


| ghoot out their lips and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in God, 
_ that he would deliver him ; let him deliver him, if he will have him!” 
‘There is none to help him: one of his apostles denies, another sells 
him; and the rest run away. ‘Many oxen are come about him: fat 
bulls of Bashan close him on every side ; they gape upon him with their 
‘mouths as it were a ramping lion; he is poured out like water; his 
_ heart in the midst of his body is like melting wax ; his strength is dried 
up ‘like a potsherd; his tongue cleaveth to his gums; he is going into 
the dust of death ; many dogs are come about him ; and the counsel of 

' the wicked layeth siege against him; his hands and feet are pierced ; 
| you may tell all his bones; they stand staring and looking upon him; 
they part his garments among them, and cast lots for the only remains 
of his property, his plain, seamless vesture. Both suns, the visible and 
‘the invisible, seem eclisped. No cheering beam of created light gilds 
his gloomy prospect. No smile of his heavenly Father supports his 
) agonizing soul! No cordial, unless it be vinegar and gall, revives’ his 
| sinking spirits! He has nothing left except his God. But his God is 
| enough forhim. In his God he has all things. And though his soul is 
| seized with sorrow, even unto death, yet it hangs more firmly upon his 
| God by a naked faith, than his lacerated body does on the cross by the 
clenched nails. The perfection of his love shines in all its Christian 
glory. He not only forgives his insulting foes and bloody persecutors, 
but, in the highest point of his passion, he forgets his own wants, 
and thirsts after their eternal happiness. Together with his blood, 
he pours out his soul for them; and, excusing them all, he says, 
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” O ye adult 
sons of God, in this glass behold al] with open face the glory of your 
_ Redeemer’s forgiving, praying love; and, as ye “behold it, be changed 
\ the same image from glory to glory, by the loving Spirit of the 

rd. 2? 

| V. This lesson is deep ; but he may teach you one deeper still. Bya 
Strong sympathy with him in all his sufferings, he may call you to “ know 
“him every way crucified.” Stern justice thunders from heaven, “ Awake, 
“O sword, against the man who is my fellow!” The sword awakes ; the 
“sword goes through his soul ; the flaming sword is quenched in his 
‘Dlood. But is one sinew of his perfect faith cut, one fibre of his perfect 
‘Tesignation injured by the astonishing blow? No ; his God slays him, 
and yet he trusts in his God. By the noblest of all ventures, in the most 
dreadful of all storms, he meekly bows his head, and shelters his depart- 
ing soul in the bosom of his God. “ My God, my God!” says he, 
“though all my comforts have forsaken me, and all thy storms and 
waves go over me, yet ‘into thy hands I commend my spirit. For thou 
wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to 
‘see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life, in thy presence is 
fulness of joy, and at thy right hand [where I shall soon sit] there are 
pleasures for evermore.’” What a pattern of perfect confidence! O ye 
perfect Christians, be ambitious to ascend to those amazing heights of 
Christ’s perfection: for hereunto are ye called; because Christ also 
suffered for us ; leaving us an example, that we should follow his steps , 
who knew no sin, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when he 
suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth 


a a i ne rn rer 


662 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, 


righteously.” — If this is your high calling on earth, rest not, O ye fa 
in Christ, till your patient hope, and perfect coutiieesiia in God have ge 
their last victory over your last enemys=thie king of terrors. 

« The ground of a thousand mistakes,” says Mr. Wesley, “ is, the no 
considering deeply that love is the highest gift of God, humble, ¢ 
patient love: that all visions, revelations, manifestations whatever, are 
little things compared to love. It were well you should be thoroug 
sensible of this ; the heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing higher 
in religion: there is, in effect, nothing else. If you look for any thing 
but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of — 
the royal way. And when you are asking others, * Have you room 4 
this or that blessing? if you mean-any thing but more love, you mean 
wrong; you are leading them out of the way, and putting them upon _| 
false scent. Settle it then in your heart, that from the moment od 
has saved you from all sin, you are to aim at nothing but more of the 
love described in the thirteenth of the Corinthians. You can go no higher 
than this, till you are carried into Abraham’s bosom.” 

VI. Love is humble. “Be therefore clothed with humility; “ 
Mr. Wesley: “let it not only fill, but cover you all over. Let aod 
and self diffidence appear in all your words and actions. Let all you 
speak and do show that you are little, and base, and mean, and vile i 
your own eyes. As one instance of this, be always ready to own ar 
fault you haye been in. If you have at any time thought, spoke, o1 
acted wrong, be not backward to acknowledge it. Never dream the 
this will hurt the cause of God: no, it will farther it. Be therefor 
open and frank when you are taxed with any thing: let it appear just as 
it is; and you will thereby not hinder, but adorn the Gospel.” Why 
should ye be more backward in acknowledging your failings, than in 
confessing that ye do not pretend to infallibility? St. Paul was perfect 
in the love which casts out fear, and therefore he boldly reproved the 
high priest: but when he had reproved him more sharply than the fifth _ 
commandment allows, he directly confessed his mistake, and set his se 
to the importance of the duty, in which he had been inadvertently want 
Then Paul said, “ I knew not, brethren, that he was the high priest : 
it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.” St 
John was perfect in the courteous, humble love which brings us down 
at the feet of all. His courtesy, his humility, and the dazzling glory — 
which beamed forth from a divine messenger (whom he apprehended te 
be more than a creature) betrayed him into a fault contrary to that of 
St. Paul: but, far from concealing it, he openly confessed it, and pub 
lished his confession for the edification of all the Churches: “ When I 
had heard and seen,” says he, “I fell down to worship before the feet — 
of the angel who showed me these things. Then saith he unto mi 
See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant.” Christian perfeetio 
shines as much in the childlike simplicity with which the perfect rea 
acknowledge their faults, as it does in the manly steadiness with w. 
they “ resist unto blood, striving against sin.” i 

VII. If humble love makes us frankly confess our faults, much more 
does it incline us to own ourselves sinners, miserable sinners before that 
God whom we have so frequently offended. I need not remind you 
that your “bodies are dead because of sin.” You see, you feel it, and 


or 


_LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM 663 


_ therefore, so long as you dwell in a pnson of flesh and blood, which 
_ death, the avenger of sin, is to pull down; so long as your final justifica- 


tion, as pardoned and sanctified sinners, has not taken place: yea, so 
long as you break the law of paradisiacal perfection, under which you 
were originally placed, it is meet, right, and your bounden duty to 
consider yourselves as sinners, who, as transgressors of the law of 
innocence and the law of liberty, are guilty of death,—of eternal death. 


| St. Paul did so after he was “‘ come to Mount Sion, and to the spirits of 


just men made perfect.” He still looked upon himself as the chief of 
sinners, because he had been a daring blasphemer of Christ, and a fierce 
persecutor of his people. “Christ,” says he, “came to save sinners, of 
whom I am chief.” The reason is plam. Matter of fact is, and will be 
matter of fact to all eternity. According to the doctrmes of grace and 


| justice, and before the throne of God’s mercy and holiness, a sinner 
| pardoned and sanctified must, in the very nature of things, be considered 


as asimner; for if you consider him as a saint absolutely abstracted 
from the character of a sinner, how can he be a pardoned and sanctified 
sinner? To all eternity, therefore, but much more while death (the 
wages of sin) is at your heels, and while ye are going to “ appear before 
the judgment seat of Christ, to receive” your final sentence of absolution 
or condemnation, it will become you to say with St. Paul, “« We have all 
sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely [as 
sinners] by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ ;” 
although we are justified supictatiy as believers, through faith; as 
obedient believers, through the obedience of faith ; and as perfect Chris- 
tians, through Christian perfection. 

VII. Humble love “becomes all things [but sin] to all men,” although 
it delights most in those who are most holy. Ye may, and ought to set 
your love of peculiar complacence upon God’s dearest children; upon 
“those who excel in virtue ;” because they more strongly reflect the 
image of “ the God of love, the Holy One of Israel.” But, if ye despise 


‘the weak, and are above lending them a helping hand, ye are fallen 
from Christian perfection, which teaches us to “bear one another’s 
burdens,” especially the burdens of the weak. Imitate then the tender- 


ness and wisdom of the good Shepherd, who “ carries the lambs in his 
bosom, gently leads the sheep which are big with young,” feeds with 
milk those who cannot bear strong meat, and says to his imperfect 
disciples, “I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them 
now.” 

IX. “ Where the loving Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Keep 


therefore at the utmost distance from the shackles of a narrow, preju- 


diced, bigoted spirit. The moment ye confine your love to the people 
who think just as you do, and your regard to the preachers who exactly 
suit your taste, you fall from perfection and turn bigots. “I entreat 
you,” says Mr. Wesley, in his Plain Account, “ beware of bigotry. Let 
not your love, or beneficence, be confined to Methodists (so called) only ; 
much less to that very small part of them who seem to be renewed in 
love ; or to those who believe yours and their report. O make not this 
your Shibboleth.” On the contrary, as ye have time and ability, “ do 
good to all men.” Let your benevolence shine upon all: let your 
charity send its cherishing beams toward all, in proper degrees. So 


664 _ LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


shall ye be perfect as your heavenly Father, “ who makes his sur 
shine upon. all ;” although he sends the brightest and warmest bez 
his favour upon “ the household of faith,” and reserves his ri 
bounties for those who lay out their five talents to the best advante ag 

X. Love, pure love, is satisfied with the Supreme Good—with | Go 
« Beware then of desiring any thing but him. Now you desire noth 
else. Every other desire is driven out: see that none enter in age ain 
‘Keep thyself pure: let your eye remain single, and your whole bod 
shall remain full of light.’ Admit no desire of pleasing food, or any 
other pleasure of sense ; no desire of pleasing the eye or imaginati¢ r . 
no desire of money, of praise, or esteem ; of happiness in any creature. 
You may bring these desires back ; but ye need not; you may feel 
no more. ‘O stand fast in the ‘liberty wherediti Christ hath made © 
you free!’ Be patterns to all, of denying yourselves, and ie 
your cross daily. Let them see that you make no account of z 
pleasure which does not bring you nearer to God, nor*regard any pz 4 
which does; that you simply aim at pleasing him, whether by doing or 
suffering ; that the constant language of your heart with regan 
pleasure or pain, honour or dishonour, is, 

All’s alike to me, so I 
In my Lord may live and die!” 4 

XI. The best soldiers are sent upon the most difficult and dangerou 
expeditions: and as you are the best soldiers of Jesus Christ, ye wil 
probably be called to drink deepest of his cup, and to carry the heavies 
burdens. “Expect contradiction and opposition,” says the judicious 
divine, whom I have just quoted, “together with crosses of various kinds, 
Consider the words of St. Paul, ‘To you it is given in behalf of Christ,” 
for his sake, as a fruit of his death and intercession for you, ‘ not only 
to believe, but also to suffer for his sake,’ Phil. i, 23. Itis given ! God 
gives you this opposition or reproach: it is a fresh token of his love Z 
And will you disown the giver? Or spurn his gift, and count it a misfo 
tune? Will you not rather say, ‘ Father, the end is come, that th ou 
shouldst be glorified. Now thou givest thy child to suffer something 
thee. Do with me according to thy will.’ Know that these things, fat 
from being hinderances to the work of God, or to your souls, unless b 
your own fault, are not only unavoidable in the course of Providence, 
but profitable, yea, necessary for you. ‘Therefore receive them from 
God (not from chance) with willingness and thankfulness. Receive 
them from men with humility, meekness, yieldingness, gentleness, 
sweetness.’ ., 

Love can never do, nor suffer too much for its Divine object. B 
then ambitious, like St. Paul, to be made perfect in sufferings. Ihe 
alrzady observed that the apostle, not satisfied to be a perfect Christi 
would also be a perfect martyr ; earnestly desiring to “ know the fellow- 
ship of Christ’s sufferings.” Follow him, as he followed his suffering, __ 
crucified Lord. Your feet “‘are shod with the preparation of the Gos- 
pel of peace ;” run after them both, in the race of obedience, for = 
crown of martyrdom, if that crown is reserved for you. And if ye mi 
the crown of those who are martyrs in deed, ye shall, however, rece 
the reward of those who are martyrs in intention—the crown of right- 
eousness and angelical perfection. ee | 


i 
LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 665 


___ XII. But do not so desire to follow Christ to the garden of Gethsemane, 


as to refuse following him now to the carpenter’s shop, if Providence 


now call you to it. Do not lose the present day by idly looking back at 


yesterday, or foolishly antedating the cares of to-morrow : but wisely use 
every hour; spending it as one who stands on the verge of time, on the 


_ border of eternity, and one who has his work cut out by a wise Provi- 


dence from moment to moment. Never, therefore, neglect using the two 
talents you have now, and doing the duty which is now incumbent upon 
you. Should ye be tempted to it, under the plausible pretence of wait- 
ing for a great number of talents : remember that God doubles our talents 
in the way of duty, and that it is a maxim, advanced by Elisha Coles 
himself, “ Use grace and have [more] grace.” Therefore, “to continual 
watchfulness and prayer, add continual employment,” says Mr. Wes- 
ley, “for grace flies a vacuum as well as nature; the devil fills what- 
ever God does not fill.” “As by works faith is made perfect, so the com- 
pleting or destroying of the work of faith, and enjoying the favour, or 
suffering the displeasure of God, greatly depend on every single act of 
obedience.” If you forget this, you will hardly do now whatsoever your 
hand findeth to do. Much less will ‘you do it with all your might, for 
God, for eternity. 

XIII. Love is modest: it rather inclines to bashfulness and silence, 
than to talkative forwardness. “In‘a multitude of words there wanteth 
not sin;” be therefore “slow to speak ;” nor cast your pearls before 
those who cannot distinguish them from pebbles. Nevertheless, when 
you are solemnly called upon to bear testimony to the truth, and to 
say “what great things God has done for you;” it would be cow- 
ardice, or false prudence, not to do it with humility. Be then “always 
ready to give an answer to every man who [properly] asketh you a rea- 
son of the hope that is in you, with meekness [without fluttering anxiety] 
and with fear” [with a reverential awe of God upon your minds, | 1 Pet. 
ili, 15. Perfect Christians are “burning and shining lights,” and our 
Lord intimates that, as “a candle is not lighted to be put under a bushel, 
but upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all the house ;” so God 
does not light the candle of perfect love to hide it in a corner, but to 
give light to all those who are within the reach of its brightness. If 
diamonds glitter, if stars shine, if flowers display their colours, and 
perfumes diffuse their fragrance, to the honour of the Father of lights, 
and Author of every good gift; if without self seeking they disclose his 
glory to the utmost of their power, why should “ ye not go and do like- 
wise?” Gold answers its most valuable end when it is brought to light, 
and made to circulate for charitable and pious uses; and not when it 
lies concealed in a miser’s strong box, or in the dark bosom of a mine. 
But when you lay out your spiritual gold for proper uses, beware of 
imitating the vanity of those coxcombs who, as often as they are about 
to pay for a trifle, pull out a handful of gold, merely to make a show of 
their wealth. 

XIV. Love or “charity rejoiceth in the [display of an edifying] truth.” 
Fact is fact, all the world over. If you can say to the glory of God, that 
you are alive, and feel very well, when it is so; why should you not also 
testify to his honour, that you “live not, but that Christ liveth in you,” 
if you really find that this is your experience? Did not St. John say, 


666 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 


“Our love is made perfect, because as he is, so are we in this world ? 
Did not St. Paul write, The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in u 
who walk after the Spirit” Did he not, with the same simplicity, aye 
that although “ he had nothing, and was sorrowful, yet he ficou al 
things, and was always rejoicing ?” 
Hence it appears, that, with respect to the declaring or concealing what 
God has done for your soul, the line of your duty runs exactly betweer 
the proud forwardness of some stiff Pharisees, and the voluntary humili 
of some stiff mystics. The former vainly boast of more than they ex. 
perience, and thus set up the cursed idol, sexr: the latter ungratefully 
‘hide “the wonderful works of God,” which the primitive Christians 
spoke of publicly in a variety of languages ; and so refuse to exalt their 
gracious benefactor, Curisr. The first error is undoubtedly more 
odious than the second; but what need is there of leaning to either 4 
Would ye avoid them both? Let your tempers and lives always de- 
clare that perfect love is attainable in this life. And when you haye ~ 
a proper call to declare it with your lips and pens, do it without for- 
wardness, to the glory of God; do it with simplicity, for the edification 
of your neighbour ; do it with godly jealousy, lest ye should show the 
treasures of Divine grace in your hearts, with the same self complacence 
with which King Hezekiah showed his treasures, and the golden vesse 
of the temple to the ambassadors of the king of Babylon, remembering 
what a dreadful curse this piece of vanity pulled down upon him: “ And 
Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord, Behold the days 
come, that all that is in thine house shall be carried into Babylon : 
nothing shall be left, saith the Lord.” If God so severely punished 
Hezekiah’s pride, how properly does St. Peter charge believers to “ give 
with fear an account of the grace which is in them!” and how careful 
should ye be to observe this important charge! 
XV. If you will keep at the utmost distance from the vanity whi 
proved so fatal to good King Hezekiah, follow an excellent direction of 
Mr. Wesley. When you have done any thing for God, or received any 
favour from him, retire, if not into your closet, into your heart, and say, 
“I come, Lord, to restore to thee what thou hast given, and I freely 
relinquish it, to enter again into my own nothingness. For what is the 
most perfect creature in heaven or earth in thy presence, but a void, 
capable of being filled with thee and by thee, as the air which is void 
and dark, is capable of being filled with the light of the sun? Grant 
therefore, O Lord, that I may never appropriate thy grace to myself, 
any more than the air appropriates to itself the light of the sun which 
withdraws it every day to restore it the next; there beg nothing in” 
the air that either appropriates his light or resists it. O give me the 
same facility of receiving and restoring thy grace and good works! I 
say thine, for I acknowledge that the root from which they spring is in 
thee, and not in me.” ‘The true means to be filled anew with the 
riches of grace,*is thus to strip ourselves of it ; without this it is ex. 
tremely difficult not to faint in the practice of good works.” And, 
therefore, that your good works may receive their last perfection, let 
them lose themselves in God. This is a kind of death to them, resem- 
bling that of our bodies, which will not attain their highest life, their 
immortality, till they lese themselves in the glory of our souls, or rather 


} 


I 


TT 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMINAISM. 667 


of God, wherewith they shall be filled. And it is only what they had 
_of earthly and mortal, which good works lose by this spiritual dea’ 

_ XVI. Would ye see this deep precept put in practice? Consider St. 
“Paul. Already possessed of Christian perfection, he does good works 
from morning till night. He warns every one night and day with tears. 
_ He carries the Gospel from east to west. Wherever he stops, he plants 
a Church at the hazard of his life. But instead of resting in his present 
perfection, and in the good works which spring from it, “he grows m 
grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ ;” unweariedly 
“following after, if that he may apprehend that [perfection] for which 
also he is apprehended of Christ Jesus,’—that celestial perfection, of 
which he got lively ideas when he was “ caught up to the third heaven, 
and heard unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter.” 
With what amazing ardour does he run his race of Christian perfection 
for the prize of that higher perfection! How does he forget the works 
of yesterday, when he lays himself out for God to-day! “'Though dead, 
he yet speaketh ;” nor can an address to perfect Christians be closed by 


_ amore proper speech than his. “Brethren,” says he, “be followers of 


me—I count not myself to have apprehended [my evangelical perfec- 
tion ;] but this one thing f do, forgetting those things which are behind, 
[settling in none of my former experiences, resting in none of my good 
works,] and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press 
toward the mark for the [celestial] prize of the high callmg of God in 
Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded ; 
and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this 
unto you.” In the meantime you may sing the followmg hymn of the 
' Rey. Mr. Charles Wesley, which is descriptive of the destruction of 
corrupt self will. and expressive of the absolute resignation which cha- 
racterizes a perfect believer :— 


To do, or not to do; to have, 

Or not to have, I leave to thee: 
To be or not to be, I leave: 

Thy only will be done in me! 
All my requests are lost in one, 
“Father, thy only will be done!” 


Suffice that for the season past, 
Myself in things Divine I sought; 
For comforts cried with eager haste, 
And murmur’d that I found them not 
I leave it now to thee alone, 
Father, thy only will be done! 


Thy gifts I clamour for no more, 
Or selfishly thy grace require, 
An evil heart to varnish o’er: 
Jesus, the giver, I desire, 
After the flesh no longer known: 
Father, thy only will be done! 


Welcome alike the crown or cross, 
Trouble I cannot ask, nor peace, 
. Nor toil, nor rest, nor gain, nor loss, 
Nor joy, nor grief, nor pain, nor ease, 
Nor life, nor death; but ever groan, 
‘Father, thy only will be done!” 


ver 


. 668 LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM, 


This hymn suits all the believers who are at the bottom of M 
Sion, and begin to join “the spirits of just men made perfect.” _ 
when the triumphal chariot of perfect love gloriously carries you to ne 
top of perfection’s hill; when you are raised far above the common 
heights of the perfect; when you are almost translated into glory, like 
Elijah, then you may sing another hymn of the same Christian poet, 
with the Rev. Mr. Madan, and the numerous body of imperfectionists 
who use his collection of Psalms, &¢ :-— 


Who in Jesus confide, 

They are bold to outride : 
All the storms of affliction beneath: 

With the prophet they soar 

To that heavenly shore, 
And outfly all the arrows of death. 


By faith we are come 
To our permanent home ; 
And by hope we the rapture improve: 
By love we still rise, 
And look down on the skies— 
For the heaven of heavens is love! 
- 
Who on earth can conceive, 
How happy we live 
In the city of God, the great King? 
What a concert of praise, 
When our Jesus’s grace 
The whole heavenly company sing! 


What a rapturous song, 
When the glorified throng 
In the spirit of harmony join! 
Join all the glad choirs, 
Hearts, voices, and lyres, 
And the burden is mercy Divine! , 


But when you cannot follow Mr. Madan, and the imperfectionists of 
the Lock Chapel, to those rapturous heights of perfection, you neee not 
give up your shield. You may still rank — the perfect, if you can 
heartily join in this version of Psalm cxxxi : 


Lord, thou dost the grace impart ! 
Poor in spirit, meek in heart, 

I shall as my Master be, 

Rooted in humility. 


Now, dear Lord, that thee I know, 
Nothing will I seek below, 

Aim at nothing great or high, 
Lowly both in heart and eye. 


Simple, teachable, and mild, 
Awed into a little child, 

Quiet now without my food, 
Wean’d from every creature good. 


Hangs my new-born soul on thee, 
Kept from all idolatry ; 

Nothing wants beneath, above, 
Resting in thy perfect love. 


That your earthen vessels may be filled with this love till they breals, - 
- 


LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM. 669 


and you enjoy the Divine object of your faith without an interposing veil 
of gross flesh and blood, is the wish of one who sincerely praises God 
_ on your account, and ardently prays,— 


‘Make up thy Jewels, Lord, and show 
The glorious, spotless Church below: 
The fellowship of saints make known; 
And O! my God, might I be one! 


O might my lot be cast with these, 
The least of Jesus’ witnesses ! 

O that my Lord would count me meet, 
To wash his dear disciples’ feet! 


To wait upon his saints below! 

On Gospel errands for them go! 

Enjoy the grace to angels given; 

And serve the royal heirs ofheaven” , 


END OF VOL. Ii. 


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